Virgil Nemoianu
Encyclopedia
Virgil Nemoianu is a Romanian-American
essayist, literary critic, and philosopher of culture. He is generally described as a specialist in “comparative literature
” but this is a somewhat limiting label, only partially covering the wider range of his activities and accomplishments. His thinking places him at the intersection of Neo-Platonism and Neo-Kantianism
, which he turned into an instrument meant to qualify, channel, and tame the asperities, as well as what he regarded the impatient accelerations and even absurdities of modernity
and post-modernity. He chose early on to write within the intellectual horizons outlined by Goethe and Leibniz
and continued to do so throughout his life.
, Romania
. His father was a lawyer. Of his two grandfathers one was a colonel in the military and conservative statesman, the other a medical doctor. The origin of both sides of the family was the Banat
(a southwestern province of Romania), where Virgil Nemoianu spent his elementary school years and all summers until he was 20). These early years and the influence of his grandparents marked all his life with a deep commitment to Central Europe, its values, and its archaic and “idyllic” customs. In 1949 Nemoianu returned to Bucharest, graduated from the elite Titu Maiorescu High School in 1956 and obtained a college degree in English language
and literature from the University of Bucharest
in 1961. Many of his elder relatives (including his father) suffered longer or shorter periods of imprisonment at the hands of the Communist dictatorship. One uncle died in jail, another was executed.
Upon university graduation he was hired as a sub-editor at a Bucharest academic publishing house and subsequently at the weeklies Contemporanul
and Lumea
. In 1964 he joined the English Department of the University of Bucharest, first as an instructor, and soon after as an assistant professor. He visited Poland
, Yugoslavia
, Greece
, Cyprus
, and Austria
. He gained permission to travel to the United States
and obtained a doctorate in Comparative Literature
from the University of California, San Diego
in 1971.
The publications of his early, "Romanian", years (c. 1961-c. 1974) already indicate his ideological orientation. He drew from the traditions of Romanian thinking and criticism (Titu Maiorescu
, Eugen Lovinescu
, Tudor Vianu
, and Lucian Blaga
), and even more strongly from the aesthetic humanist doctrines of the "Sibiu Literary Circle
" as articulated by Ion Negoiţescu
, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
and others of the same group. These first publications dealt almost equally with Romanian, European, and comparative literature. Among them there was a book-length essay on structuralism (accompanied by an anthology), a selection of texts by Walter Pater
, G. K. Chesterton
and T. S. Eliot
, and two volumes of collected articles (1971 and 1973).
and London
(1973–1974), California at Berkeley
(1975–1978), Cincinnati
(1978–1979), and The Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C.
(1979 to the present), as well as, in a visiting capacity, at the University of Amsterdam (spring 1995). At the Catholic University of America he has been, successively, associate professor (1979–1985), ordinary professor (1985–1993), and William J. Byron
Distinguished Professor of Literature and Ordinary Professor of Philosophy (since 1993). There, he also held the positions of Director of the Comparative Literature Program (1979–1994) and Associate Academic Vice-President for Graduate Studies (1989–1991).
In 1993 he was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
(Academia Artia et Scientiarium Europae) and in 2003 he was granted the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Babeş-Bolyai University
in Cluj-Napoca
and in 2010 by the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
in Iaşi
, and was invited by the Central European University
in Budapest
to offer the distinguished cycle of "René Wellek
lectures" (2004).
Over the years, Virgil Nemoianu has received numerous grants and fellowships from foundations such as Humboldt
, Fulbright
, DAAD
, NEH
, USIA
, Taft, Earhart
, University of California
Regents’ Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
and the University of Georgia
Center. Among his awards are the Vatican Library
Medal (1998), the “Harry Levin” Award of the American Comparative Literature Association
(1986), the ARA
Prize for Literature (1989), the Catholic University of America Excellence Award for Research (1987), the Award for Memoir-Writing of the Writers’ Union of Romania (1995) and the Award for Life-Long Achievement of the Romanian Cultural Foundation
(1997). Special issues of the Romanian monthlies Vatra (1999 and 2010), Familia
(2001) and Revista 22
(March 2010) were devoted to Nemoianu’s life and work. Articles about him have appeared in 8 encyclopedic works. The Romanian president awarded Nemoianu the country's highest civilian award the Order of the Star of Romania
(Steaua României) in the rank of commander (2010)
Active in his profession, Virgil Nemoianu has been a member of the Writers' Union of Romania
, the International Comparative Literature Association
(where he was secretary-general from 1994 to 2000 and vice-president from 2000 to 2005), the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics
(where he was conference organizer in 2002 and member of the Executive Board from 2002 to 2005), the Goethe Society of North America
, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
, the Modern Language Association
(where he was twice divisional executive committee member and president, in 1986-1991, for Comparative Romantic and 19th Century Studies and from 1994 to 1999 for European Literary Relations), the American Conference on Romanticism (where he was executive board member from 1997 to 2000), Committee Member of the American Council for Learned Societies (1991–1992) and others. He has been contributing editor or board member on more than 20 scholarly or literary journals in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been a consultant
, evaluator and/or referent for over 100 institutions, colleges, foundations, and scholarly or political centers (for many of these several times), doctoral director for 19 young scholars, and doctoral committee member for another two dozen. He has participated in three dozen scholarly conferences, some of which he organized himself and in others of which he chaired sessions, in North America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. Over the years he has delivered approximately 75 invited public lectures, papers at scholarly conferences, and keynote addresses. Nemoianu has written articles and/or co-ordinated sections for a number of encyclopedias, including, among others the Ungar Encyclopedia of 20th century Literature (1980, 1992, 2001), Encyclopædia Britannica
(1976, 1977, 1978), The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1980s) Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1993), Encyclopedia of the Essay (1997). So far he has published – in several languages and in a variety of countries – a total of over 650 scholarly articles, reviews, columns, interviews and occasional pieces.
In May 2011 he was invested with the Royal Award "Nihil Sine Deo".
Nemoianu's chief fields of research interest and accomplishment are European Romanticism
, the intellectual history
of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and aesthetic theory
.
After 1971 he wrote first on the 18th century, and soon mostly on the early 19th century. He was also active as a collaborator to Radio Free Europe
, the Voice of America
and the Romanian Section of the BBC
on Romanian issues, an activity continued in the 1990s through (mostly political) articles in the Romanian media.
There are four central concepts in Nemoianu’s writings. The first is the autonomy and importance of the aesthetic in human existence. The beautiful is a key faculty of the human mind, no less than a basic attribute of reality
; its perception
is present from the beginning of humanization in all societies and civilizations, large and small, known to us. Nemoianu has argued constantly, though in different contexts and using different examples, that without a sense and grasp of the beautiful, human life would be radically impoverished and perhaps its very survival might be endangered. (This can be seen most prominently in books published in 1989, 2006 and 2009.)
The second is that the best context for social and political activity and functioning is a moderate conservatism
, based upon natural reason
, common sense
, free enterprise
, and respect for tradition
. (This view is most clearly expressed in volumes that came out in 1977, 1989, 1999, and 2001). His political philosophy draws heavily on Burke
, Tocqueville
, and Oakeshott
.
The third was an emphasis on the powerful connection between the fields of the religious and the cultural (as illustrated primarily in books that came out in 1992 and in 1997). Throughout his career, Nemoianu has tried to show the compatibility between the Roman Catholic
and the Eastern Orthodox
branches of Christianity
. His intellectual guides in this regard were Hans Urs von Balthasar
, Henri de Lubac
and Romano Guardini
, as well as a number of Orthodox theologians and thinkers.
The fourth is that the "Romantic age
" (or simply the period 1770-1848) was a fundamental turning point in human history, the period in which durable images and thinking models were devised as a response to the consciousness
of a globalization of human affairs and an acceleration of history; Nemoianu repeatedly used an examination of this age as an analogy to contemporary events (particularly in books published in 1984, 2004, and 2006). He also expanded the use of the period concept of "Biedermeier
" for later Romanticism in Europe as a whole and emphasized its vast importance for later historical and cultural developments. The use of "Biedermeier" as a fundamental period instrument helped the author integrate East-Central with Western European culture. Nemoianu tried to merge his aesthetic, religious, philosophical and political view in a volume devoted to the contemporary age (2010).
, Hungarian
, Spanish
, and Georgian
, among other languages. A few of his works are somewhat literary in their structure, specifically a collection of aphorism
s and fantastic descriptions (1968), a volume of memoirs (1994), and travel notes (2006). He has also published (either alone or in collaboration) translations of both poetry and prose.
Nemoianu has been married to Anca (née Ţifescu) since 1969 and has one son, Virgil Martin.
Romanian-American
A Romanian American is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage. For the 2000 US Census, 367,310 Americans indicated Romanian as their first ancestry, while 462,526 persons declared to have Romanian ancestry...
essayist, literary critic, and philosopher of culture. He is generally described as a specialist in “comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
” but this is a somewhat limiting label, only partially covering the wider range of his activities and accomplishments. His thinking places him at the intersection of Neo-Platonism and Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...
, which he turned into an instrument meant to qualify, channel, and tame the asperities, as well as what he regarded the impatient accelerations and even absurdities of modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
and post-modernity. He chose early on to write within the intellectual horizons outlined by Goethe and Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
and continued to do so throughout his life.
Early life and work
Nemoianu was born on March 12, 1940, in BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. His father was a lawyer. Of his two grandfathers one was a colonel in the military and conservative statesman, the other a medical doctor. The origin of both sides of the family was the Banat
Banat
The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
(a southwestern province of Romania), where Virgil Nemoianu spent his elementary school years and all summers until he was 20). These early years and the influence of his grandparents marked all his life with a deep commitment to Central Europe, its values, and its archaic and “idyllic” customs. In 1949 Nemoianu returned to Bucharest, graduated from the elite Titu Maiorescu High School in 1956 and obtained a college degree in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and literature from the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
in 1961. Many of his elder relatives (including his father) suffered longer or shorter periods of imprisonment at the hands of the Communist dictatorship. One uncle died in jail, another was executed.
Upon university graduation he was hired as a sub-editor at a Bucharest academic publishing house and subsequently at the weeklies Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
and Lumea
Lumea
Lumea is a monthly magazine on international politics, published in Bucharest, Romania....
. In 1964 he joined the English Department of the University of Bucharest, first as an instructor, and soon after as an assistant professor. He visited Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. He gained permission to travel to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and obtained a doctorate in Comparative Literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
from the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
in 1971.
The publications of his early, "Romanian", years (c. 1961-c. 1974) already indicate his ideological orientation. He drew from the traditions of Romanian thinking and criticism (Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
, and Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
), and even more strongly from the aesthetic humanist doctrines of the "Sibiu Literary Circle
Sibiu Literary Circle
The Sibiu Literary Circle was a literary group created during World War II in Sibiu to promote the modernist liberal ideas of Eugen Lovinescu....
" as articulated by Ion Negoiţescu
Ion Negoitescu
Ion Negoiţescu was a Romanian literary historian, critic, poet, novelist and memoirist, one of the leading members of the Sibiu Literary Circle. A rebellious and eccentric figure, Negoiţescu began his career while still an adolescent, and made himself known as a literary ideologue of the 1940s...
, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
Stefan Augustin Doinas
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era....
and others of the same group. These first publications dealt almost equally with Romanian, European, and comparative literature. Among them there was a book-length essay on structuralism (accompanied by an anthology), a selection of texts by Walter Pater
Walter Pater
Walter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
, G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
and T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, and two volumes of collected articles (1971 and 1973).
Career in the West
Once he obtained his doctorate, Nemoianu taught at the Universities of CambridgeUniversity of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
(1973–1974), California at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
(1975–1978), Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
(1978–1979), and The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
(1979 to the present), as well as, in a visiting capacity, at the University of Amsterdam (spring 1995). At the Catholic University of America he has been, successively, associate professor (1979–1985), ordinary professor (1985–1993), and William J. Byron
William J. Byron
Rev. William James Byron, S.J. a priest of the Society of Jesus, was the 12th president of The Catholic University of America as well as the 21st president of the University of Scranton. From 2003-2004, Byron was also interim president of Loyola University New Orleans.Fr...
Distinguished Professor of Literature and Ordinary Professor of Philosophy (since 1993). There, he also held the positions of Director of the Comparative Literature Program (1979–1994) and Associate Academic Vice-President for Graduate Studies (1989–1991).
In 1993 he was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
The European Academy of Sciences and Arts was created in 1990 in Salzburg, Austria by heart surgeon Felix Unger of Salzburg; the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, Franz König; and the political scientist and philosopher Nikolaus Lobkowicz....
(Academia Artia et Scientiarium Europae) and in 2003 he was granted the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Babeş-Bolyai University
Babes-Bolyai University
The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is an university in Romania. With almost 50,000 students, the university offers 105 specialisations, of which there are 105 in Romanian, 67 in Hungarian, 17 in German, and 5 in English...
in Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
and in 2010 by the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
The Alexandru Ioan Cuza University is a public university located in Iaşi, Romania. The University of Iaşi, as it was named at first, is the oldest higher education institution in Romania, founded one year after the establishment of the Romanian state, by an 1860 decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan...
in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, and was invited by the Central European University
Central European University
For other uses, see European University Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university offering degrees in the social sciences, humanities, law, public policy, business management, environmental science, and mathematics...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
to offer the distinguished cycle of "René Wellek
René Wellek
René Wellek was a Czech-American comparative literary critic. Like Erich Auerbach, Wellek was an eminent product of the Central European philological tradition and was known as a vastly erudite and "fair-minded critic of critics."René Wellek was born and raised in Vienna, speaking Czech and German...
lectures" (2004).
Over the years, Virgil Nemoianu has received numerous grants and fellowships from foundations such as Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is a foundation set-up by the government of the Federal Republic and funded by the German Foreign Office, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and others for the promotion of international co-operation...
, Fulbright
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
, DAAD
German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....
, NEH
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
, USIA
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency , which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, USIA's broadcasting functions were moved to the newly created Broadcasting Board of Governors, and its exchange and non-broadcasting information functions were...
, Taft, Earhart
Earhart Foundation
The Earhart Foundation is a private charitable foundation that funds research and scholarship. It was founded in 1929 by oil executive Harry Boyd Earhart.- History :...
, University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
Regents’ Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin in an interdisciplinary institute created 1981 in Berlin-Grunewald for studies in natural, social sciences for various research projects. It is a member of the group Some Institutes for Advanced Study....
and the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
Center. Among his awards are the Vatican Library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...
Medal (1998), the “Harry Levin” Award of the American Comparative Literature Association
American Comparative Literature Association
The American Comparative Literature Association is the principal learned society in the United States for scholars whose work connects several different literary traditions and cultures or that examines the premises of cross-cultural literary study...
(1986), the ARA
Academic Research Alliance
ARA is an organization originally founded as the Academic Research Alliance on February 18, 2001. Currently the organizations name is 'ara'. ARA was originally created to involve students in scientific activities. On October 2004 the organization changed its codes and statutes to develop an...
Prize for Literature (1989), the Catholic University of America Excellence Award for Research (1987), the Award for Memoir-Writing of the Writers’ Union of Romania (1995) and the Award for Life-Long Achievement of the Romanian Cultural Foundation
Romanian Cultural Foundation
The Romanian Cultural Foundation is a Romanian non-governmental organization created by writer Augustin Buzura, with the objective of stimulating cultural, artistic and scientific creations, promoting Romanian spiritual values in Romania and abroad, and fostering inter-cultural dialogue...
(1997). Special issues of the Romanian monthlies Vatra (1999 and 2010), Familia
Familia (literary magazine)
The Romanian-language Familia literary magazine was first published by Iosif Vulcan in Budapest from June 5, 1865 to April 17, 1880. The magazine moved to Oradea and continued publication from April 27, 1880 to December 31, 1906....
(2001) and Revista 22
Revista 22
Revista 22 is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture....
(March 2010) were devoted to Nemoianu’s life and work. Articles about him have appeared in 8 encyclopedic works. The Romanian president awarded Nemoianu the country's highest civilian award the Order of the Star of Romania
Order of the Star of Romania
The Order of the Star of Romania is Romania's highest civil order. It is awarded by the President of Romania...
(Steaua României) in the rank of commander (2010)
Active in his profession, Virgil Nemoianu has been a member of the Writers' Union of Romania
Writers' Union of Romania
The Writers' Union of Romania , founded in March 1949, is a professional association of writers in Romania. It also has a subsidiary in Chişinău, Republic of Moldova...
, the International Comparative Literature Association
International Comparative Literature Association
The International Comparative Literature Association - ICLR) founded in 1954 is an international organization for international research in the field of comparative literature....
(where he was secretary-general from 1994 to 2000 and vice-president from 2000 to 2005), the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics
Association of Literary Scholars and Critics
The Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers was organized in 1994 as the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics by a group of over 400 scholars troubled by what they saw as an over reliance on post-modern theory in the academy...
(where he was conference organizer in 2002 and member of the Executive Board from 2002 to 2005), the Goethe Society of North America
Goethe Society of North America
The Goethe Society of North America was founded in December 1979 in San Francisco as a non-profit organization dedicated to the encouragement of research on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his age....
, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The American Society for 18th-century Studies is an interdisciplinary group, established in 1969, dedicated to the advancement of scholarship in all aspects of the period from the later 17th through the early 19th centuries...
, the Modern Language Association
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
(where he was twice divisional executive committee member and president, in 1986-1991, for Comparative Romantic and 19th Century Studies and from 1994 to 1999 for European Literary Relations), the American Conference on Romanticism (where he was executive board member from 1997 to 2000), Committee Member of the American Council for Learned Societies (1991–1992) and others. He has been contributing editor or board member on more than 20 scholarly or literary journals in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been a consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
, evaluator and/or referent for over 100 institutions, colleges, foundations, and scholarly or political centers (for many of these several times), doctoral director for 19 young scholars, and doctoral committee member for another two dozen. He has participated in three dozen scholarly conferences, some of which he organized himself and in others of which he chaired sessions, in North America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. Over the years he has delivered approximately 75 invited public lectures, papers at scholarly conferences, and keynote addresses. Nemoianu has written articles and/or co-ordinated sections for a number of encyclopedias, including, among others the Ungar Encyclopedia of 20th century Literature (1980, 1992, 2001), Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
(1976, 1977, 1978), The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1980s) Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1993), Encyclopedia of the Essay (1997). So far he has published – in several languages and in a variety of countries – a total of over 650 scholarly articles, reviews, columns, interviews and occasional pieces.
Main ideas and orientations
Nemoianu's chief fields of research interest and accomplishment are European Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, the intellectual history
Intellectual history
Note: this article concerns the discipline of intellectual history, and not its object, the whole span of human thought since the invention of writing. For clarifications about the latter topic, please consult the writings of the intellectual historians listed here and entries on individual...
of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and aesthetic theory
Aesthetic Theory
Aesthetic Theory is a book by the 20th century German philosopher Theodor Adorno which was culled from drafts written between 1961 and 1969, ultimately published posthumously in 1970...
.
After 1971 he wrote first on the 18th century, and soon mostly on the early 19th century. He was also active as a collaborator to Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, the Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
and the Romanian Section of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on Romanian issues, an activity continued in the 1990s through (mostly political) articles in the Romanian media.
There are four central concepts in Nemoianu’s writings. The first is the autonomy and importance of the aesthetic in human existence. The beautiful is a key faculty of the human mind, no less than a basic attribute of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
; its perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
is present from the beginning of humanization in all societies and civilizations, large and small, known to us. Nemoianu has argued constantly, though in different contexts and using different examples, that without a sense and grasp of the beautiful, human life would be radically impoverished and perhaps its very survival might be endangered. (This can be seen most prominently in books published in 1989, 2006 and 2009.)
The second is that the best context for social and political activity and functioning is a moderate conservatism
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
, based upon natural reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
, common sense
Common sense
Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
, free enterprise
Free enterprise
-Transport:* Free Enterprise I, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1962 and 1980.* Free Enterprise II, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1965 and 1982....
, and respect for tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
. (This view is most clearly expressed in volumes that came out in 1977, 1989, 1999, and 2001). His political philosophy draws heavily on Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
, and Oakeshott
Michael Oakeshott
Michael Joseph Oakeshott was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of law...
.
The third was an emphasis on the powerful connection between the fields of the religious and the cultural (as illustrated primarily in books that came out in 1992 and in 1997). Throughout his career, Nemoianu has tried to show the compatibility between the Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
branches of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. His intellectual guides in this regard were Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church...
, Henri de Lubac
Henri de Lubac
Henri-Marie de Lubac, SJ was a French Jesuit priest who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and is considered to be one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century...
and Romano Guardini
Romano Guardini
Romano Guardini was a Catholic priest, author, and academic. He was one of the most important figures in Catholic intellectual life in 20th-century.- Life and work:...
, as well as a number of Orthodox theologians and thinkers.
The fourth is that the "Romantic age
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
" (or simply the period 1770-1848) was a fundamental turning point in human history, the period in which durable images and thinking models were devised as a response to the consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
of a globalization of human affairs and an acceleration of history; Nemoianu repeatedly used an examination of this age as an analogy to contemporary events (particularly in books published in 1984, 2004, and 2006). He also expanded the use of the period concept of "Biedermeier
Biedermeier
In Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...
" for later Romanticism in Europe as a whole and emphasized its vast importance for later historical and cultural developments. The use of "Biedermeier" as a fundamental period instrument helped the author integrate East-Central with Western European culture. Nemoianu tried to merge his aesthetic, religious, philosophical and political view in a volume devoted to the contemporary age (2010).
General observations
Virgil Nemoianu has written in both English and Romanian. His essays have been translated into GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, among other languages. A few of his works are somewhat literary in their structure, specifically a collection of aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
s and fantastic descriptions (1968), a volume of memoirs (1994), and travel notes (2006). He has also published (either alone or in collaboration) translations of both poetry and prose.
Nemoianu has been married to Anca (née Ţifescu) since 1969 and has one son, Virgil Martin.
Scholarly books in English
- Micro-Harmony. The Growth and Uses of the Idyllic Model in Literature (1977)
- The Taming of Romanticism. European Literature and the Age of Biedermeier (1984); Romanian transl. 1998, 2004.
- Theory of the Secondary. Literature, Progress and Reaction (1989); Romanian transl. 1997
- The Triumph of Imperfection. The Silver Age of Sociocultural Moderation in Early 19th Century Europe (2006)
- Imperfection and Defeat. The Function of Aesthetic Imagination in Human Society (2006)
- Postmodernism and Cultural Identities. Conflicts and Coexistence (2010)
Scholarly books (in English) edited or co-ordinated
- The Hospitable Canon. Essays on Literary Play, Scholarly Choice , and Popular Pressures (1991; with Robert Royal)
- Play, Literature, Religion. Essays in Cultural Intertextuality (1992; with Robert Royal)
- Non-Fictional Romantic Prose. Expanding Borders (2004; with Steven Sondrup)
- Two issues each of Stanford Literature Review (1980s) and RNL/CWR (1990s) – guest editor.
Books of literary, philosophical and cultural criticism (in Romanian)
- Structuralism (Structuralismul), 1967
- The calm of values (Calmul valorilor), 1971
- The useful and the pleasant (Utilul si plăcutul), 1973
- The smile of abundance. Lyrical knowledge and ideological models in Ştefan Aug. Doinaş’s work, 1994
- The games of divinity. Thought, Freedom and Religion at the millennium’s end, 2000
- Romania and her liberalisms (România şi liberalismele ei) - 1999
- Tradition and Freedom (Tradiţie şi libertate), 2001
- Calm wisdom. Dialogues in Cyberspace with Robert Lazu (Înţelepciunea calmă. Dialoguri în cyberspace cu Robert Lazu), 2002
- Romania as Seen by Us. Conversation in Berlin with Sorin Antohi (România noastră. Convorbiri berlineze cu Sorin Antohi), 2008, 2009
Editing. Translations into Romanian
- Literary Essays. Pater, Chesterton, Eliot (Eseuri literare. Pater, Chesterton, Eliot). (1966). Selection, introduction, translation, notes.
- Lyric portraits. Ion PillatIon PillatIon Pillat grew up in Bucharest. He was a poet, best known for his volume Pe Argeş în sus and Poeme într-un vers...
(Portrete lirice. Ion Pillat) (1969) Editing and introduction. - Poems. Gottfried BennGottfried BennGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
(Poeme. Gottfried Benn) (1973) Introduction and translation (with Şt. A. Doinaş) - Alibi and Other Poems. Şt. A. Doinaş (1973) Translation into English with Peter Jay
- The conversational essay from Bacon to HuxleyAldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
(Eseul conversaţional englez de la Bacon la Huxley) (1975) 2 vols. Selection and introduction - The Eighth Day by Thornton WilderThornton WilderThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
(1976) Introduction and translation (with A. Nemoianu) - Hyperion, The Death of Empedocles, Hymns and Odes by Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
(Hyperion. Moartea lui Empedocle. Imnuri şi ode de Friedrich Holderlin) (1977). 2 vols. Translated into Romanian with Şt. A. Doinaş and I. Negoiţescu. - Ion Dezideriu SîrbuIon Dezideriu SîrbuIon Dezideriu Sîrbu was a Romanian philosopher, novelist, essayist and dramatist. A university associate professor and theater critic, he was a vicitm of the communist regime, spending about 6 years as a political prisoner...
Crossing the curtain (I.D. Sîrbu. Traversarea cortinei) (1994) introduction and edition of literary correspondence (with M. Ghica)
Literary works in Romanian
- Symptoms (Simptome), 1969
- Interior Archipelago, Memorialistic Essays 1940-1975 (Arhipelag interior. Eseuri memorialistice 1940-1975), 1990
- As Stranger through Europe (Străin prin Europa), 2006