The book series Studii Româneşti/Romanian Studies/Études Roumaines/Rumänische Studien is the outcome of a partnership between the Society for Romanian Studies (SRS), the world’s premier academic organization dedicated to the advancement of Romanian Studies, and Polirom, Romania’s largest publisher of academic titles. We publish scholarly books in Romanian, or works published in other languages on Romanian topics, in Romanian translation, authored or edited by SRS members. The series is uniquely committed to the process of peer review and to publishing high quality academic works dealing with Romania and/or Moldova and all populations living there, or with diasporas and cultures related to Romania and/or Moldova.

Editorial tasks include:

• Seeking potential authors;
• Reviewing books and manuscripts for publication;
• Recruiting and liaising with peer reviewers;
• Assisting authors with book proposals;
• Proposing books and manuscripts to Polirom;
• Actively tracking the progress of submitted manuscripts;
• Reviewing proofs for non-native Romanian-speaking authors;
• Overseeing the Series’ pages on the SRS website assisted by the assistant editor and webmaster;
• Updating information on the Series for the SRS Newsletter assisted by the assistant editor and webmaster;
• Assisting with promotion activities of the series and the books;
• Oversight of the Series’ goals and procedures (in consultation with the Board).

Qualifications for successful candidates:

• The editors must be well acquainted with books and mss. coming out in the field of Romanian Studies, broadly defined, in humanities and social sciences;
• Actively engaged in some aspect broadly understood of Romanian studies;
• Must be an SRS member or must be prepared to join SRS; 
• These positions are suitable for mid- to advanced-career colleagues.

Please send nominations or self-nominations by June 30, 2026, to Anca Sincan, Chair of the Nominating Committee, via e-mail at anca.sincan@gmail.com.

The nomination should include a current email address and institutional affiliation, a current CV, as well as a brief personal statement about your goals as Editor (up to 300 words). The Series Editors will be appointed by the SRS Board in line with the organization’s bylaws. To become acquainted with the terms of the appointment, please visit https://srstudies.org/srs-bylaws/

The nominating committee consists of:

Anca Sincan, Chair

Oana Popescu

Cristian Cercel

The Society for Romanian Studies is looking for three new newsletter editors to work on its publication. Editors serve a four-year term and are responsible for soliciting news from members and compiling the biannual Newsletter, which is published in the spring and fall. Editors are members of the SRS Executive Board. We are looking for dynamic and well-organized young scholars or graduate students interested in Romanian studies, broadly defined. Editing the Newsletter provides valuable editorial experience and an intimate knowledge of Romanian Studies as a field and the SRS as an organization. It also helps generate a positive public profile for the editors.

Please email Valentina Glajar (glajar@txstate.edu) a copy of your CV and a short statement about your priorities for upcoming issues of the Newsletter by March 6, 2026.

Check out our current and past issues of the SRS Newsletter in PDF format here.

Call for Coeditor, Journal of Romanian Studies

The Journal of Romanian Studies is currently seeking a new Coeditor, to replace Jill Massino beginning in September 1, 2025. The Coeditor will work with Narcis Tulbure (Coeditor), luliu Rațiu (Book Review Editor) and Iemima Ploscariu (Editorial Assistant).

This biannual peer-reviewed journal published by the Society for Romanian Studies in collaboration with Liverpool University Press examines critical issues in Romanian Studies broadly conceived, linking work in that field to wider theoretical debates and issues of current relevance, and serving as a forum for both junior and senior scholars.

The journal considers original manuscripts that draw on various theoretical, conceptual and methodological perspectives as understood in disciplines ranging from history, political science, philosophy, law and justice studies, anthropology, sociology, ethnography, education, literature, linguistics, economics, business, religion, gender, film and media studies, art history, and music. It considers theoretically informed manuscripts that examine political, socioeconomic and cultural developments in Romania and Moldova, the situation of their ethnic minorities and their relations with the ethnic majority, as well as the position, culture, and history of Romanians and Moldovans living outside the shifting boundaries of those countries.

The journal also welcomes articles that connect Romania and Moldova comparatively with other states and their ethnic majorities and minorities, as well as with other groups by investigating the challenges of migration and globalization, changes and opportunities in international relations, and the impact of the European Union. Articles with a historical focus and studies dealing with contemporary events will be considered by the journal.

Coeditors serve three-year, renewable terms and are responsible for:

·     Directing the editorial content and policy of the journal;

·     Liaising with LUP on production and all other publishing matters;

·     Soliciting articles, book reviews, translations, and special issues;

·     Reviewing article-length manuscripts to determine if a piece should be sent out to complete the double-blind peer-review process.

·     Quality assurance in the final proofs for publication.

The editors are not compensated for their work. Guest editors have been used for special issues and this practice will continue as opportunities and needs present themselves. If you would like to be considered for either of these positions, please send a current curriculum vitae and a letter of intention by Friday 26^th September 2025 to the President of the Society of Romanian Studies, James Kapaló (j.kapalo@ucc.ie) and Secretary of the Society for Romanian Studies, Dana Trif dana.trif@gmail.com

*Update: The winners of 2025 book prize have been announced on the dedicated page.

The Society for Romanian Studies invites nominations for the Eighth Biennial SRS Book Prize awarded for the best scholarly book published in English in the humanities or social sciences, on any subject relating to Romania or Moldova and their diasporas. 

To be eligible, 

• books must have been published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024 as indicated by the copyright date
• books may be in any academic field, with a predominant focus on Romanian or Moldovan subject matter (including subjects relating to the activities of non-Romanian ethnic groups on Romanian or Moldovan territory). Edited books, translations, reprints or new editions of works published before 2023, and non-scholarly books are not eligible 
• the author of the submitted book must be an SRS member.

The prize carries with it an award of $500. Either authors or publishers of books may make submissions. Submissions should be sent to the SRS prize committee by October 15^th, 2025

Three copies of each submitted book should be sent by mail, one copy directly to each committee member at the addresses below. Questions or inquiries can be sent to the committee chair, Constantin ARDELEANU, via email at cardeleanu@nec.ro. The award will be announced in March 2026.

SRS Book Prize Committee Members:

Maria ASAVEI Associate Professor  Charles University, PragueU Krize 8, Praha 5, 15800, Czech Republic Email:maria.asavei@fsv.cuni.cz

Constantin ARDELEANU Researcher Institute for South-East European Studies, New Europe College Str. Plantelor 21, 023971Bucharest, RomaniaEmail: cardeleanu@nec.ro

Alexandru SAVOAIA Assistant professor Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Bd. Carol I no. 11, 700506 Iași, Romania Email: alex.savoaia@gmail.com

About the SRS Book Prize:

For details of the Prize and past winners please see: https://srstudies.org/awards-prizes/

The Society for Romanian Studies (SRS) is pleased to announce the Seventeenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize competition for an outstanding unpublished essay or thesis chapter. The submitted single-author work must be written in English by a graduate student in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian or Moldovan subject, broadly and inclusively understood.

The 2025 prize consists of $150 plus an individual, one-year membership to SRS that includes a subscription to the journal, valued at $75. The second-place award of honorable mention – if awarded – includes a one-year subscription to the journal.  

The competition is open to current MA and doctoral students or to those who defended dissertations in the academic year 2024–2025. The submitted work should have been completed within the last two academic years and should not have been published yet. If the essay is a dissertation chapter, it should be accompanied by the dissertation abstract and table of contents. Expanded versions of conference papers are also acceptable if accompanied by a description of the panel and the candidate’s conference paper proposal. Candidates should clearly indicate the format of the essay submitted. Essays/chapters should be up to 10,000 words double-spaced, including citations.  

Candidates should clearly indicate their institutional affiliation. Include as well your current e-mail and postal addresses so that you may be contacted.  Questions can be directed to the chair of the committee, Professor Irina Livezeanu, irinal@pitt.edu. Please send a copy of the essay, any accompanying documentation (as both Word and PDF please) and an updated CV to all three committee members.

Applicants are not required to be members of SRS in order to compete.

Deadline for submissions is Sept. 30^th. The winners will be announced on Dec. 1^st.

SRS Essay Prize Committee Members:

Irina Livezeanu Emeritus Faculty Department of History Jewish Studies Film & Media Studies University of Pittsburgh Email: irinal@pitt.edu

Anca Sincan Associate professor and Senior Researcher, “Ioan Petru Culianu” Institute for the Study of Religion, George E. Palade University   Email: anca.sincan@gmail.com

Marius Wamsiedel Adjunct Assistant Professor of Global Health Duke Kunshan University   Email: marius.wamsiedel@duke.edu

*Update: The positions have been filled in the meantime. We welcome Stefano Bottoni, Maria Bucur, Irina Livezeanu and Svetlana Suveica to the Board. 

The SRS seeks nominations for the four positions on the Executive Board.

In order to qualify to be nominated for election to the Executive Board nominees must be

1. a current member of SRS 
2. actively engaged in the field of Romanian Studies understood in the broadest sense

Please send nominations or self-nominations by July 11, 2025 to Roland Clark, Past President and Chair of the Nominating Committee, via e-mail clarkr@liverpool.ac.uk

The nomination should include a current email address and institutional affiliation, a 200-word bio, as well as a brief personal statement about your motivations and goals for the position you wish to stand for (up to 300 words). Please consult the SRS by-laws for details about SRS governance, available at https://society4romanianstudies.org/srs-bylaws/

Note: The Nominating Committee strives to promote balanced representation in regard to age, gender, professional background, country of residence, and geographical and disciplinary areas of specialization, but is not bound by anyparticular formula.

OPEN POSITIONS

Member x 4

Members of the Board have the duty to participate in Board meetings in person or online and exercise their right to vote on all aspects of the operation of the Society. Members will be called on to contribute to a range of activities of the Society including but not restricted to Prize Committees, Working Group activities, conference organisation, reviewing for the Journal of Romanian Studies.

SELECTION PROCESS

SRS elects Board members through an electronic ballot of all members in good standing. Open balloting will take place from July 16, 2025 and the results will be announced no later than August 1, 2025.

The nominating committee consists of:

Roland Clark, University of Liverpool, UK, clarkr@liverpool.ac.uk

Monica Ciobanu, State University of New York – Plattsburgh, USA, monica.ciobanu@plattsburgh.edu

László Fosztó, Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, Romania, laszlo.foszto@gmail.com

Congratulations are in order for the winners of the second biennial Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize: Keith Harrington (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) and George Andrei (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA).

In 2021 Professor Keith Hitchins passed away after retiring from a long and rich career at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Soon thereafter, the Society for Romanian Studies established a prize to honor his legacy for the study of Romania and Romanian related topics.

The selection committee comprised of Andrei Miroiu, Letiția Guran and Roland Clark unanimously decided to award the second biennial Keith Hitchins Prize for Best Dissertation in the field of Romanian Studies (academic years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024) to both Keith and George.

Keith Harrington, National University of Ireland, Maynooth: “Exploring the Internal Dynamics of the Transnistrian Separatist Movement, 1989-1992” (defended: September, 2023).

Keith Harrington’s doctoral dissertation provides a comprehensive and compelling overview of the Transnistrian separatist movement, focusing specifically on the contributions, disputes and voices of the rural population and of local Moldovan elites. This original and well-documented dissertation revisits the origin and evolution of the Transnistrian war, along with the emergence and dynamics of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic in the context of Russia’s support for separatism in the region through a constant supply of free gas, subsidized pensions, humanitarian aid and assistance. While Harrington’s research is primarily focused on the creation of the T.M.R., it also provides valuable insights into the legacies and impact of competing nation-building projects, the rise and fall of pan-Romanian nationalism, the Gagauz separatist movement, and how open conflict was diffused in Moldova’s other Russian-speaking regions. It also develops a theoretical model for measuring resistance to secession that can be applied elsewhere. In the context of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which shares a border with Transnistria, Harrington’s study provides a scholarly reliable, much needed contextualization and understanding of the inter-ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements in the former Soviet republics.

George Andrei, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA: “Our Struggle for Existence: Negotiating Forestry, Rural Citizenship, and Statebuilding in Modern Romania” (defended: April 2024).

George Andrei’s dissertation makes an innovative contribution to understanding the modernization of Romania, and by extension, of Eastern Europe in terms of local socio-ecological systems by connecting the emergence of forestry in Romania to the rural state building accomplished by key local agents. Remarkably, the particular Transylvanian case studies he explores prove instrumental not only in interpreting past interactions between local communities and central state authorities, but in relating them to contemporary attempts to reconcile economic development and environmental justice to conservation and preservation efforts in and around some of Europe’s oldest forests. In the context of current environmental concerns, Andrei’s study joins cutting edge scholarly literature involved in redefining humans’ changing positionality and renewed responsibility toward nature in the age of the Anthropocene.

The SRS would like to thank the Selection Committee – Andrei, Letiția, and Roland – for their work and, of course, congratulate the winners!

The Sixteenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize 2024 is awarded to Miruna Chirila, MA in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at University College London, for her essay, “Identities in Romania Post-Same Sex Marriage Ban Referendum: Negotiating Queerness.” The panel praised the essay as a well-written and fascinating exploration of the impact of the 2018 same-sex marriage referendum on both discourses of queerness and self-representation among individuals in Moldavia. In her well-argued approach, Chirila focuses on individual queer voices and their acts of resistance and non-compliance in the face of the conservative mobilization of the Orthodox Church and political parties that, in turn, prompted a more assertive embrace of queer and trans identities.

Valentina Glajar

Petru Negură

Delia Popescu

Deadline: June 15, 2024

The Society for Romanian Studies (SRS) is delighted to announce the second competition for the Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize in any discipline related to Romanian Studies. The named prize will be awarded in honor of the late Professor Keith Hitchins, who served as an advisor, encouragement and inspiration for numerous graduate students throughout his long career. The award carries a financial component of $250 plus a year’s membership of the SRS, which includes a subscription to the Journal of Romanian Studies.

Eligibility: The submitted doctoral dissertation or thesis must be written in English or Romanian by a scholar in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian or Moldovan subject, broadly and inclusively understood. This may encompass focus on themes related to Romania (as it currently exists and in its various past iterations), to the people who have lived in or currently inhabit Romania, or those who self-identify as Romanian but reside beyond Romania’s borders. Studies connected to ethnic minorities in Romania are also eligible. Disciplines include, but are not limited to, Anthropology, Art History, Economics, Gender Studies, Geography, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Religious Studies, and Sociology, insofar as they are related to Romania and Romanians. If you are not sure whether your dissertation is eligible, please send a query to the jury.

We will take into consideration doctoral dissertations and theses that were completed (i.e., successfully defended with all necessary changes made and a final version deposited with the relevant institution) during the last two academic years, 2022-2023 and 2023-24. Dissertations completed prior to August 2022 are ineligible.

Materials and Deadline: To be considered for this competition, please send a brief letter of interest that includes the title of your dissertation, an abstract, and some proof of eligibility in regards to when your dissertation was completed. This proof may be as simple as an email or signed letter from your dissertation adviser, confirming the academic year when the dissertation was deposited. We need to receive the initial inquiry before May 30, 2024, in order to ensure speedy reply.

Please send the dissertation in a digital format that can be easily shared, as pdf or word document. The dissertation needs to be sent individually to each member of the jury. Documents that are very large may not come through. If you have illustrations that render the document very large, please contact us directly and we will work out a digital document transfer to the jury. The deadline for submitting the dissertation is June 15, 2024.

The winner of the competition will be announced on or around November 15, 2024.

The jury of the 2024 Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize is:

Roland Clark, History, University of Liverpool: clarkr@liverpool.ac.uk

Letitia Guran, Literature and Culture, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: lguran@email.unc.edu

Andrei Miroiu, Political Science, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest: andrei_miroiu@yahoo.com

Deadline: August 1, 2024

Romanian students are now eligible to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship.

https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholarships/applications/global/eligibilitycriteria

“The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest (first awarded in 1902) international scholarship programme, enabling outstanding young people from around the world to study at the University of Oxford.”