Professional Background

Positions Held

• 1991 Research Assistant to Aelfric's Prefaces, Jon Wilcox, general editor
• 1988-92 Translation of Nina Cassian's Diary of a Diary, submitted for publication to W. W. Norton & Co.
• 1986-87: Translator, The U of I "Translation Lab"
• 1981-85: Librarian/curator, Sibiu, Romania
• 1980-81: Translator, Foreign Trade Agency, Bucharest, Romania

Teaching Experience

• Composition I (Internet) 2000
• Introduction to Fiction, Kirkwood Community College, IA, 1999
• English as a Foreign Language, Polytechnic Institute of Budapest, Hungary, 1998
• In search of Identity , KCC, 1998
• Literature of the Fantastic, KCC, 1996-1997
• Introduction to Medieval Literature, KCC, 1993
• English as a Foreign Language, University of Bratislava, Slovakia, 1993
• Introduction to Poetry, KCC, 1992
• Freshman Composition, KCC, 1992-93
• Freshman Composition and Rhetoric, The University of Iowa, 1986-92
• East European Literature of the Fantastic and Science Fiction, The U of I, 1990-91
• Major Texts of World Literature, The U of I, 1985-88
• Second Year Accelerated French, The U of I, 1986
• English Language and Literature, People's University, Sibiu, Romania, 1982-85
• English as a Foreign Language, People's University, Bucharest, Romania, 1981-82

Educational Background

• 1994: PhD Comparative Literature, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
  • Major fields of concentration
  • Medieval literature, with emphasis on Old English
  • History of modern criticism: theory and practice
  • French Renaissance
• 1980: BA, English and French, The University of Cluj, Romania
  • Thesis: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Para-Universes
• 1978: Graduate Student Scholarship, Lincoln College, England

  DISSERTATION: Chronotropes: The Sense of Time in Old English and Old French Poetry. The interplay of codes in Anglo-Saxon poetry and Old French chansons de geste

International Experience

Development & Training

Publications

• Criticism: - "The Domains of the Imaginary," a monthly column in Transilvania, a Romanian literary journal, 1982-85
• "The Daily Death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," in Steaua, a Romanian monthly, 1982

Translations

• "Notes on Paul Celan" by Nina Cassian, Parnassus, N.Y., 1988
• Diary of a Diary by Nina Cassian, 1991; typescript under consideration by publisher
• Romanticism by Hugh Honour, Bucharest: Meridiane 1984
• Translations from T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Thom Gunn, E. E. Cummings, W. H. Auden, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in Transilvania, Tribuna, Vatra, between 1981-85
• Co-translator of Modern English and American Poetry, Cluj: University Babes Bolyai, 1980

Fiction

• The Principle of Communicating Vessels, Bucharest: Meridiane, 1985
• "The Dream Merchants," in Equinox, 1978

Conferences

• "Wordum Wrixlan: Game and Ritual in the Old English Gnomes," Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Phoenix AZ, 1995
• "Unriming the Riming Poem: Sex and the Rhetoric of Concealment," XVIIIth Conference of Mid-Western Medieval Association (MAMA), Norman KA, February 1994
• "The Road with No Return and Vivien," Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Annual Conference, Jackson WY, May 1994
• "Le 'bon propos' de Clément Marot," Third Annual Graduate Student Symposium, Madison WI, May 1991
• "Stoppard, Ionesco and the Logic of the Absurd," Literary Autumn Symposia, Cluj, Romania, 1980

Personal

After I graduated, I worked as a curator and librarian in one of the oldest and most reputable museums in the country. Surrounded by an astounding collection of 200,000 books, manuscripts, and incunabula, I could do little but continue to read and write: various translations from Vonnegut, Bradbury, Thom Gunn. T.S. Eliot culminated with a two-volume history of Romanticism by Hugh Honours and a collection of my own short stories.

In 1982, my father was allowed to come to Iowa City under the International Writers' Program, and managed to smuggle back into Romania the syllabus and course description of the University of Iowa's Comparative Literature department, along with a flyer of the University's main library. Those were the pieces of writing that ultimately decided my future.

It took me three years and an inordinate amount of sheer luck to obtain a passport and a Romanian exit visa, which was valid for only 45 days. In Iowa City, I found myself unable to obtain a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature in 45 days, so I decided to remain here as a political refugee. In the meanwhile, my books were being pulled off the shelves of the Romanian bookstores - too small a price to pay for pulling the books I was interested in off the University of Iowa's own library shelves. I completed my doctoral studies in medievalism while teaching with the French, Rhetoric, and English departments of the University of Iowa. The title of my dissertation is Chronotropes: The Sense of Time in Old English and Old French Poetry and it is a semiotic exploration of the peculiar ways medieval writers managed to capture the idea of transience and time in their poems.

I still translate from and into English, Romanian and French and I am tentatively getting back in the fiction writing saddle as well. Between being a father to a wonderful 7-year-old son and teaching at Kirkwood, I confess to having other non-academic interests and hobbies, highlighted in the Other Interests link.

Courses I Teach

Writing Courses: Composition I, Composition II, College Writing:

Literature Courses: Introduction to Poetry, In Search Of Identity, Literature of the Other,