Miruna Runcan
Professor Miruna Runcan PhD
Romanian-born writer, semiotician and theater critic. She got a PhD in Theater's Aesthetics at the Bucharest University of Theater and Film in 1999 on a complex historical and aesthetic research on the Romanian modern stage-directing and theater theories, from 1920 to 1960.
After 1989, she was involved in several activist and theatrical projects, both in media ethics and theater criticism. She published the first Romanian book on media law and ethics, for young journalists (1997, Bucharest, All Publishing House), followed by The Fourth Power: Ethics and Law for Journalists (Cluj, 2002, Dacia Publishing House). After 2001, she is professor at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania; she was, between 2009 and 2014 the Head of the Doctoral School of the same university. From 2014, she became the Head of the Theatre Department at the Faculty of Theatre and Television, UBB Cluj.
Theater criticism, theatre history, theory and audience studies define her area of teaching.
As a researcher, she is interested in theatre history, theatre theory and interdisciplinary studies related to spectatorship in theatre, film and media. In 2004, she starts - together with Romanian playwright and theatre theoretician C.C. Buricea-Mlinarcic - a complex group project, reuniting field research, anthropological analysis and theatre and film creation: the Everyday Life Drama Program. From 2009, the program became the “Everyday Drama Laboratory” of The Theater Research and Creation Center "Vlad Mugur", awarded with several substantial research grants from the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and from the Ministry of Culture.
Books (as author or editor, selective):
• Runcan, Miruna, Critica de teatru: Incotro? (Theatre Criticism: Whereto?) Cluj: EDITURA EIKON, 2014
• Runcan, Miruna Signore misterioso: O anatomie a spectatorului (Signore Misterioso. An Anatomy of the Spectator), Bucuresti, Editura UNITEXT, 2011, ISBN 978-973-9129-49-8
• Runcan, Miruna; Iftene, Daniel, (eds.) Theatre and Film Studies V - Theatre. From Theory to Praxis Cluj: EDITURA EIKON, 2012
• Runcan, Miruna; Maniutiu, Mihai (ed.) Theatre and Film Studies VI – Theatre Director, Writes, Composers Cluj: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2011, ISBN 978-973-610-485-5
• Runcan, Miruna Habarnam in orasul teatrului. Universul spectacolelor lui Alexandru Dabija (The Universe of Aldexandru Dabija’s Theatre), Cluj: Limes Publ., 2011, ISBN 978-973-725-531-9
• Runcan, Miruna; Pedestru Mihai (eds.) Procedings of the International Conference "The DIGITAL GENERATION: SELF-REPESENTATION, URBAN MYTHOLOGY AND CULTURAL PRACTICES", Cluj: LIMES Publ., 2011
• Runcan, Miruna, Fotoliul scepticului spectator (The Armchair of the Skeptical Spectator), Bucharest: UNITEXT, 2007
• Runcan, Miruna, Pentru o Semiotica a spectacolului teatral (Towards a Semiotic of Theatre Performance ) Cluj: Editura Dacia, 2005
• Runcan, Miruna, A Patra Putere. Etica si legislatie pentru jurnalisti (The Fourth Power. Ethics and Law for Journalists) Cluj: Editura Dacia, 2003
• Runcan, Miruna, Teatralizarea si reteatralizarea in Romania. 1920-1960 (Theatricalization and Re-theatricalisation in Romania. 1920-1960), Cluj: Editura Eikon, 2003. Revised second edition online, Editura Liternet, 2013
Romanian-born writer, semiotician and theater critic. She got a PhD in Theater's Aesthetics at the Bucharest University of Theater and Film in 1999 on a complex historical and aesthetic research on the Romanian modern stage-directing and theater theories, from 1920 to 1960.
After 1989, she was involved in several activist and theatrical projects, both in media ethics and theater criticism. She published the first Romanian book on media law and ethics, for young journalists (1997, Bucharest, All Publishing House), followed by The Fourth Power: Ethics and Law for Journalists (Cluj, 2002, Dacia Publishing House). After 2001, she is professor at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania; she was, between 2009 and 2014 the Head of the Doctoral School of the same university. From 2014, she became the Head of the Theatre Department at the Faculty of Theatre and Television, UBB Cluj.
Theater criticism, theatre history, theory and audience studies define her area of teaching.
As a researcher, she is interested in theatre history, theatre theory and interdisciplinary studies related to spectatorship in theatre, film and media. In 2004, she starts - together with Romanian playwright and theatre theoretician C.C. Buricea-Mlinarcic - a complex group project, reuniting field research, anthropological analysis and theatre and film creation: the Everyday Life Drama Program. From 2009, the program became the “Everyday Drama Laboratory” of The Theater Research and Creation Center "Vlad Mugur", awarded with several substantial research grants from the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and from the Ministry of Culture.
Books (as author or editor, selective):
• Runcan, Miruna, Critica de teatru: Incotro? (Theatre Criticism: Whereto?) Cluj: EDITURA EIKON, 2014
• Runcan, Miruna Signore misterioso: O anatomie a spectatorului (Signore Misterioso. An Anatomy of the Spectator), Bucuresti, Editura UNITEXT, 2011, ISBN 978-973-9129-49-8
• Runcan, Miruna; Iftene, Daniel, (eds.) Theatre and Film Studies V - Theatre. From Theory to Praxis Cluj: EDITURA EIKON, 2012
• Runcan, Miruna; Maniutiu, Mihai (ed.) Theatre and Film Studies VI – Theatre Director, Writes, Composers Cluj: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2011, ISBN 978-973-610-485-5
• Runcan, Miruna Habarnam in orasul teatrului. Universul spectacolelor lui Alexandru Dabija (The Universe of Aldexandru Dabija’s Theatre), Cluj: Limes Publ., 2011, ISBN 978-973-725-531-9
• Runcan, Miruna; Pedestru Mihai (eds.) Procedings of the International Conference "The DIGITAL GENERATION: SELF-REPESENTATION, URBAN MYTHOLOGY AND CULTURAL PRACTICES", Cluj: LIMES Publ., 2011
• Runcan, Miruna, Fotoliul scepticului spectator (The Armchair of the Skeptical Spectator), Bucharest: UNITEXT, 2007
• Runcan, Miruna, Pentru o Semiotica a spectacolului teatral (Towards a Semiotic of Theatre Performance ) Cluj: Editura Dacia, 2005
• Runcan, Miruna, A Patra Putere. Etica si legislatie pentru jurnalisti (The Fourth Power. Ethics and Law for Journalists) Cluj: Editura Dacia, 2003
• Runcan, Miruna, Teatralizarea si reteatralizarea in Romania. 1920-1960 (Theatricalization and Re-theatricalisation in Romania. 1920-1960), Cluj: Editura Eikon, 2003. Revised second edition online, Editura Liternet, 2013
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Papers by Miruna Runcan
like theatre criticism in general, narrowly as it was and sometimes continues to be
defined in Romania – was only considered legitimate if signed by men. There were but
two timid exceptions, two female voices whose writings were partially recovered as late as 1978-1983 and have been insufficiently explored since: the poet and memoirist Otilia Cazimir, who worked as an inspector for the Ministry of Arts’ Theatre Directorate for a decade, and the aesthetics professor Alice Voinescu. This paper is an attempt to turn the spotlight not onto the two writers’ theatre-related activity, but rather to the way they
engaged, in writing or in action, with the thorny issues of feminism. Their opposing standpoints – a feminism of emancipation vs. an anti-feminist type of feminism – still proves emblematic to our day for the specific way in which socio-cultural mentalities and perceptions on women’s condition in 20th-century Romania were preserved; it appears that post-socialist theatre criticism, especially from the decade 2000-2010,
coalesced around the same positions.
worked all her life at Babes-Bolyai University Cluj. Between 1980-1990 she held the office of Head of French
Department of BBU Cluj, but also that of Secretary of the Communist Party at Universities’ Center Cluj –
an important political position, considering that the Center was the nucleus of ideological control for all
the academic institutions of Cluj County. Furthermore, she was an original and peculiar theatre critic: she
systematically refused to review theatre performances, offering instead a large horizon of research, articles
and books dedicated to theatre theory, comparative studies, and the history of drama. Remarkably, nothing
of this professional heritage is tainted by her political activities, even though the press archives reveal many of
her occasional propagandistic/opportunistic contributions – in other words, she tried to keep her two social
roles completely separate. This paper, a fragment of a larger collection of case studies dedicated to Romanian
female theatre critics, tries to offer a fresh image of Maria Vodă Căpușan’s writings in the complex political,
intellectual, and theatrical context of the last decades of the Romanian socialist era.
like theatre criticism in general, narrowly as it was and sometimes continues to be
defined in Romania – was only considered legitimate if signed by men. There were but
two timid exceptions, two female voices whose writings were partially recovered as late as 1978-1983 and have been insufficiently explored since: the poet and memoirist Otilia Cazimir, who worked as an inspector for the Ministry of Arts’ Theatre Directorate for a decade, and the aesthetics professor Alice Voinescu. This paper is an attempt to turn the spotlight not onto the two writers’ theatre-related activity, but rather to the way they
engaged, in writing or in action, with the thorny issues of feminism. Their opposing standpoints – a feminism of emancipation vs. an anti-feminist type of feminism – still proves emblematic to our day for the specific way in which socio-cultural mentalities and perceptions on women’s condition in 20th-century Romania were preserved; it appears that post-socialist theatre criticism, especially from the decade 2000-2010,
coalesced around the same positions.
worked all her life at Babes-Bolyai University Cluj. Between 1980-1990 she held the office of Head of French
Department of BBU Cluj, but also that of Secretary of the Communist Party at Universities’ Center Cluj –
an important political position, considering that the Center was the nucleus of ideological control for all
the academic institutions of Cluj County. Furthermore, she was an original and peculiar theatre critic: she
systematically refused to review theatre performances, offering instead a large horizon of research, articles
and books dedicated to theatre theory, comparative studies, and the history of drama. Remarkably, nothing
of this professional heritage is tainted by her political activities, even though the press archives reveal many of
her occasional propagandistic/opportunistic contributions – in other words, she tried to keep her two social
roles completely separate. This paper, a fragment of a larger collection of case studies dedicated to Romanian
female theatre critics, tries to offer a fresh image of Maria Vodă Căpușan’s writings in the complex political,
intellectual, and theatrical context of the last decades of the Romanian socialist era.
For this special issue of Studia UBB Dramatica we welcome contributions (articles, studies, interviews, position statements, opinion pieces and reviews) from academics, artists, critics.