Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies

 

Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies is affiliated with the Faculty of Theater and Film at Babeș-Bolyai University. It aims to advance interdisciplinary research in the fields of performing and screen arts: theatre, performing arts, film, television and media. The center is dedicated to researching the dialogue of these arts with contemporary society. It supports projects that study reception in theatre and film; cultural consumption in the context of digitalization; theatre, film, television and digital media iconography; the relationship of film, television and theater with new media; digital distribution; and theatre and visual anthropology. It also supports projects that approach the institutional system in culture, legislation on the operation and financing of entertainment and film institutions, and sustainable cultural management in the field.

 

 

The Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies takes over and continues, at a superior level of quality, the activity of the “Vlad Mugur” Center for Research and Creation in Theater, Film and Media, started in 2007. CCCTFM Vlad Mugur has so far hosted several working groups on history, theory, and praxis in the fields of theater, film, and media, has developed impactful research, has consistently organized high-visibility international conferences, published collective and individual volumes hosted by prestigious publishing houses in the country and abroad, and has also edited the biannual scholarly journal Studia UBB Dramatica. The restructuring and renaming comes to respond to the members’ desire to give their research a wider international resonance, emphasizing both its interdisciplinary and multicultural character.

 

The center takes the name of an actor, film and theatre director from Cluj. Jenő Janovics was a pioneer of film production in the region, making his first film, The Yellow Foal, in 1913 and then starting the first local film studios, Corvina (1915) and Transsylvania Film (1917).

 

Leadership: The Center is headed by Miruna Runcan (Professor of Theatre Studies) and  Constantin Parvulescu (Associate Professor of Film and Media studies).

 

Founding Members

Horea Avram — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies

Anna Batori — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies

Ana Grgic — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies

Anca Hațiegan — Associate Professor of Theatre Studies

Liviu Malița — Professor of Theatre Studies

Cristina Modreanu — Researcher in Theatre Studies

Laura Pavel  — Professor of Theatre Studies

Andrea Tompa — Associate Professor of Theatre Studies

Claudiu Turcuș  — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies

 

Klaus Obermaier and Ars Electronica Futurelab, „Apparition” (2004-2013)

 

Lucian Țion – Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies

Claudiu Turcuș  — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies

Research Grants

 

 

 

Dicționarul Multimedia al Teatrului Românesc

DMTR are ca scop redescoperirea, revitalizarea și reimaginarea arhivelor teatrale pentru noile generații și să contribuie la prezervarea lor. O echipă de specialiști în artele spectacolului, alături de studenți scotocesc prin arhive teatrale private și contribuie la digitalizarea unor arhive existente în teatrele de stat, recuperând documente nedigitalizate până acum și punându-le în circuit pentru accesul larg, gratuit. DMTR, www.dmtr.ro, are până acum 100 de fișe multimedia, împărțite în cele două secțiuni, Artiști și Spectacole, iar în 2022 va fi completat cu încă 50 de fișe despre Spectacole și Artiști din perioada de după 1989. Proiectul a fost inițiat de criticul de teatru Cristina Modreanu și produs de Asociația Română pentru Promovarea Artelor Spectacolului în parteneriat cu UBB prin Facultatea de Teatru și Film împreună cu UAT Târgu Mureș. Printre colaboratorii cei mai activi ai DMTR se numără prof. dr. Miruna Runcan și conf. univ. dr. Anca Hațiegan și Cristina Modreanu care, în octombrie 2021, s-a alăturat Facultății de Teatru și Film în calitate de cercetătoare. Toate trei sunt membre ale Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies

 

 

Ana Grgić, Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture: The Imaginary of the Balkans. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021.

 

Constantin Parvulescu and Jan Hanzlik. „The Peripheralization of East-Central European Film Cultures on VOD Platforms.” Iluminace. Vol. 33, Iss. 2,  (2021): 5-25.

 

Horea Avram, Perspectiva negociabilă. Eseuri și comentarii despre practici artistice actuale. [Negotiable perspective. Essays and Comments on Contemporary Artistic Practices]. Bucharest: Eikon Press, 2021.

 

Ana Grgić, La désintégration et la résurrection de l’image-matière : pour une philosophie de la restauration cinématographique, Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2021.

 

Laura Pavel, Personaje ale teoriei, fiinţe ale ficţiunii (Personae of Theory, Beings of Fiction), Iaşi: Institutul European, 2021.

 

Miruna Runcan, Teatru în diorame. Discursul criticii de teatru în comunism. Viscolul 1978-1989, (Theatre Criticism Discourses in Communist Era – 1987-1989), București, Editura Tracus Arte, 2021.

 

Ana Grgić, “Dialogical kinesis: Edison and the “print” appearance of Blacksmiths in the Balkans”, Early Popular Visual Culture, May, 2021. DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2021.1914702

 

Constantin Parvulescu, “The Political and Economic Intervention of Non-Fiction Money Literacy Film in the Post-2008 Era,” Canadian Journal of Film Studies,

(2021) 30:1, 49-71 DOI: 10.3138/cjfs-2020-0034

 

Constantin Parvulescu & Claudiu Turcuș, “Afterlives of Romanian socialist-era historical film: reruns, story universes, reception,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, (2021) 63:1-2, 50-71, DOI: 10.1080/00085006.2021.1915527

 

Cristina Modreanu, “National Identity as inflammable material (Identitatea Națională ca material explozobil)”, Scena.ro online

https://revistascena.ro/category/editorial/

EVENT – Janovics Center Book Talk: Terence McSweeney Black Panther (2018): A ‘defining moment’ for America or Just a Movie?”

Friday, May 27, 12pm, Zoom link:  https://zoom.us/j/96382837488 Meeting ID: 963 8283 7488

 

 

Event – Janovics Center Award Colloquium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies, Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babes-Bolyai University is delighted to invite you at the Janovics Center Award Colloquium on May 5, 2022. The event features the winners of The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies.

The event takes place in the Cinema Hall (Room 43) of the Faculty of Theatre and Film Building. Online participation is available using this Teams Link.

 

 

 

Event – Artists and Power in the 21st Century.

Determined by the war in Ukraine, therefore focused on an actual ( ) conflict, The Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies invites theatre artists, theatre critics and academics to an online talk on the topic of Artists and Power in the 21st Century.

We have invited in this effect the American theatre critic John Freedman, a former resident of Moscow and an expert in Russian theatre and politics – as proved by his recent article The Anatomy of Lost Love: Russian Culture at War, the starting point of our debate. We have also invited our colleague, professor László Upor, freeSZFE, Budapest – former rector of the Theatre and Film Academy Budapest and a victim of political intervention since a couple of years ago.

The discussion, hosted by Cristina Modreanu, Andrea Tompa and Miruna Runcan, will take place Thursday 27 of April, 19 PM (Athens) /12 AM ET (Estern Time)

Link Zoom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Event – The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners Announcement,

The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies is yearly awarded to publications that advance transnational research in the fields of film and theatre studies and employ innovative methods in the humanities. The Jury awarding these works was composed of Professors Michael Gott, University of Cincinnati, Mariana Liz, University of Lisbon, and Constantin Parvulescu, Babes-Bolyai University (for film studies), and Liviu Dospinescu, Laval University Quebec, Péter P. Müller University of Pécs, and Miruna Runcan, Babes-Bolyai University (for theatre studies), decided to offer the following awards:

 

This year’s BEST BOOK award (monograph or collection) was offered to Rachel S. Harris and Dan Chyutin (eds), Casting a Giant Shadow: The Transnational Shaping of Israeli Cinema, Indiana University Press, 2021. The Jury commended the collection’s innovative, transnational approach to the study of a national cinema, the overall quality of its chapters and introduction, its comprehensive design, and the relevance of its intervention in the historiography of Israeli cinema.

 

This year’s BEST ARTICLE award was offered to Andrew Higson, “The Resilience of Popular National Cinemas in Europe (part one and two), Transnational Screens, 12:3, 2021, 199-219, 220-232. The Jury appreciated the extent, thoroughness, and relevance of the presented research, its interdisciplinary approach, and the way the work tackles major concepts in contemporary film studies, delivers a convincing defense of the concept of national cinema, and presents its findings in a clear and persuasive prose.

 

The Jury decided to offer a SPECIAL MENTION to Andrea Virginás, Film Genres in Hungarian and Romanian Cinema: History, Theory, and Reception, Lexington Books. 2021. The Jury recognized the ambitious objectives of the monograph, its contribution to understanding genre history, its comparative transnational method, and its insightful understanding of the cultural and industrial dynamics of small European film cultures.

 

The Janovics Center congratulates the authors for their achievements and will organize book presentations and talks related to their work. Further details on the award and related events are available on the Center’s website, under News and Events.

 

Cluj-Napoca, March 21, 2022.

Constantin Parvulescu and Miruna Runcan

 

 

 

 

Event – The Unknown History and Mystery of Bambi: How Walt Disney Perverted History a talk by Jack Zipes 

Wednesday, March, 23, 5pm (Bucharest time)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/96839292196?pwd=VHdjaXNPZ0doZjF2WEdZRTZjWlRmUT09

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Event – How feminism is seen on the Romanian stage

An invitation to online debate

Friday / January 25th / 2022 /  6 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the overwhelming challenges caused by the pandemic, the latest theatrical seasons have witnessed the coagulation of themes and artistic products related to the condition of women in today’s Romania. How deeply are they explored and what is the effect? We invite you to take part in an open and unbiased debate on this matter.

 

Guests: Leta Popescu, Adina Lazăr, Alexandra Felseghi
Moderator: Cristina Modreanu
Hosts: Andrea Tompa, Miruna Runcan, Anca Hațiegan

 

Location: ONLINE / ACCESS LINK

 

 

 

News – Call for Submissions: The Janovics Center Award for Outstanding Humanities Research in Transnational Film and Theatre Studies

We invite submissions for our annual award for outstanding humanities research in transnational film and theatre studies. The award will be offered to contributions in the fields of film or theatre studies, books and articles.

The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2022.

Read more

 

 

News – Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies has joined the Hungarian Theater Department, Babeș-Bolyai University in organizing the conference

The Invisible History as Her Story. Women in Hungarian/Minority Theater.

 

The conference takes place from 2^nd to 4^th of December in a hybrid format and it is supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Hungarian University Institute of Cluj and the Babeș-Bolyai University.

The conference is bilingual, English and Hungarian, and interpreters will be provided for all presentations.

The Key Speakers are Gajdó Tamás (Hungarian Theater Museum and Institute), Penny Farfan (University of Calgary, Canada), Alina Nelega (University of Arts, Tirgu-Mures), Pető Andrea (Central European University, Hungary-Austria).

Four of the authors presenting papers in the conference are members of Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies: Miruna Runcan, Andrea Tompa, Anca Hațiegan, Cristina Modreanu.

 

See the detailed program of the conference at the event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/185449997071495

 

Event – Exploring East-Central European Screen Industries in Global Contexts with Petr Szczepanik

The Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies organises a series of book talks with relevant authors from the industry. Audience is kindly invited on the 18th of November to meet Petr Szczepanik, author of Screen Industries in East-Central Europe.

This book provides an alternative perspective into the audiovisual and media industries of eastern and central Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. In doing so, it offers insight into the ways the screen industries of small nations are positioned in and respond to globalization and digitalization. Petr Szczepanik suggests that for these ‘digital peripheries’, globalization and digitalization are as yet incomplete, stumbling processes, closely intertwined with and mediated by deeply local circumstances and players.

Instead of a top-down economic or political overview, this book places central focus on the lived realities of producers as key initiators, facilitators, and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it looks closely at how their agency is circumscribed by the limited scale and peripheral positioning of the markets in which they operate, and how they struggle to come to terms with these constraints through their business strategies, creative thinking and professional self-perceptions.

Moderated by professor Claudiu Turcuș, the talk titled Exploring East-Central European Screen Industries in Global Context, will be held online at 4.00 pm on 18th of November on zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97017691384?pwd=NUplMUcvdm92dWl5bFVGb2tCTHlwZz09

The book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and can be downloaded from www.bloomsburycollections.com.

 

 

Event – The Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts invites young and senior researchers, academics, and students to the debate-seminar

 

 

 

Event  – ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH THE ARTIST ORLAN

 

Event –   Seminar hosted by Janovics Center for Screen and Performing Arts Studies

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/3159042949?pwd=bHczd3pQNmIxUVcyQmFIb1paUi9aUT09

Meeting ID: 315 904 2949
Passcode: T8Kja9

 

News – Ana Grgic and Constantin Parvulescu will serve on the official selection juries of ASTRA International Documentary  Film Festival Sibiu, September 5-12, 2021  https://www.astrafilm.ro/en/jury-2021

 

News – In May 2021 Romanian Association for Performing Arts (ARPAS) received the AFCN Award for ”Reviving the Immaterial Heritage” for the project The Multimedia Dictionary of Romanian Theatre- DMTR.ro, project leader Cristina Modreanu.

 

News – Professor Miruna Runcan was awarded the prestigious Best Critic Award at UNITER’s Gala in July 2021.

 

News – Professor Miruna Runcan was nominated for the “Literary Criticism/Literary History/Literary Theory Award” by Observator Cultural 2021 for her book Teatru în diorame. Discursul criticii de teatru în comunism. Amăgitoarea primăvară 1965-1977, (Theatre Criticism Discourses in Communist Era – 1965-1977), Tracus Arte, 2020.

 

News – Ana Grgić was awarded the New Europe College International Fellowship for the research project “Rediscovering a lost female film pioneer: Mărioara Voiculescu and early cinema in Romania and the Balkans” starting October 2021.

 

News – Cristina Modreanu will join the Theatre Department of UBB as an affiliate researcher starting October 2021.

 

Event –   Romanian Theatre Heritage: A Dictionary for the next generations

 

We are excited to announce that The Multimedia Dictionary of Romanian Theatre -DMTR.ro will be presented in the frame of the National Theatre Festival in October 2021 on the occasion of the uploading of the 100^th dictionary entry.

The occasion will be marked by introductions made by three of the researchers who have been actively involved with the construction of the Multimedia Dictionary, the project leader, Dr. Cristina Modreanu (researcher, UBB), the senior researcher and students coordinator Dr. Miruna Runcan (professor, Theatre Department, UBB) and theatre critic and producer Oana Cristea Grigorescu.

We will keep you updated on the exact day and hour and you are invited to join us on the celebration of this event..