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Professor of the Month - January

Petra Alina Marinescu - Professor of the Month

Petra Alina Marinescu is Assoc. Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication and International Relations, “Danubius” University of Galați, also working as Consultant for the PR&MEDIA Department. Formerly, she was Senior Lecturer at the same institution. Petra holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, from the University of Bucharest, and a master’s degree in Social Research from the same institution, both programs being taught in English. Petra also studied abroad on various occasions (Westminster University, University of Graz, Aarhus University, University of Loughborough).

Petra told us that she is mainly interested in studying the issue of organizational burnout from a discursive perspective, employee engagement and disengagement, as also decisional processes. She also explained that she is fond of media manipulation, not only for having graduated Journalism, but because of the intricacies of the topic.        

About her former professional preoccupations, the Senior Lecturer recollected: “Shortly after graduation, I developed a carrier in corporate marketing and communication working as PR Manager and Corporate Affairs Manager for one of the most important media holdings in Romania. I managed the market launching of various newspapers and magazines, but also the opening of editorial offices in Bruxelles and Chișinău”.

Petra confesses that, since 2011, she pursued her real vocation, that of teaching and entered the Academia where she engaged in challenging research endeavors. Her first book, The Discursive Dimension of Employee Engagement and Disengagement. Accounts of Keeping and Leaving Jobs in Present-Day Bucharest Organizations (2017, Peter Lang Publishing), is aimed at helping employers, employees and coaching practitioners deal with organizational disengagement and its unwanted consequences at an organizational and at individual level. Her second book, Manipulation in the Disclosure of the <<Securitate>> Files (2021, Peter Lang Publishing) presents the reader with an applied analysis of how the concepts of information and manipulation were illustrated in the Romanian press when the “Securitate” files were revealed, based on the case of Mona Muscă, a controversial topic that was widely debated by most dailies at the time. The analyzed press segment revealed the predilection for a speech condemning Mona Muscă. The message received by the target audience was not a balanced, objective one, but one that contradicts the deontology of the journalistic profession.

Moreover, Petra published extensively, both in national and foreign journals, and participated in a large number of international conferences.

She is also certified as professional trainer, project manager, corporate manager and team performance manager.  

Petra applauds the Danubian family for all the challenging endeavors and great projects but, above all, for the extraordinary people: management, faculty and students, and feels really proud to have been part of their well-known accomplishments.  

 

 

 

 


Professor of the Month - December

Florin Popescu – A Respectful and Exigent Professor

For Associate Professor Florin Popescu, his academic activity within the Economic Sciences and Business Administration Faculty of “Danubius” University represents a paradigm shift in that, he says, “I was offered the opportunity to work together with experts and professionals who share their academic expertize”.

Florin Popescu sees his interactions with fellow Danubian professors and students as empathetic moments of reciprocal respect and believes that “flexibility and adaptation of teaching methods to students’ needs represent the faculty’s strong features.”  

An European Commission expert since 2020, he has as main goal, for the next years, his involvement, along with other IT&C professionals, in as many European projects as possible in the academic and research field, one of these ones being - The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) - an environment for hosting and processing research data to support EU science, where he is also a permanent member of EOSC Future User Group to co-design EOSC Future services and solutions.

Florin Popescu’s curriculum reads a rich research activity, its results being published by international publishing houses working close together with researchers and professionals from first class institutions, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University or Stanford University. Only this year, he signed no less than five WOS articles, two of them being also published by the World Health Organization.

Talking about himself as being an exigent professional and, at the same time, empathetic and respectful, Florin Popescu advices the Danubian community to be the best. “You are one click far from any opportunity of professional becoming!”, he said.

 

Assoc. Senior Lecturer Petra Alina Marinescu

PR&MEDIA Consultant


Professor of the Month - November

Ion Rusu – A Man of Duty and Modesty

Ion Rusu is Professor at the Law Faculty of “Danubius” University with an academic background that he told us that started immediately after 1990 when, as officer with managerial attributions, but also with attributions in criminal investigations in the Romanian Police, he insisted in increasing his becoming in the juridical field, as also in correctly guiding his subordinated colleagues. He attended postgraduate studies at the Law Faculty in Bucharest, subsequently receiving a Ph.D. diploma from “Al. I. Cuza” Police Academy.      

In 2009 he joined “Danubius” University of Galați about which he told us that, in his opinion, “it has a special significance, representing academic excellence” and that “it is a special place where I have permanently had the opportunity to interact, almost on a daily basis, in a direct manner or electronically, with outstanding people, real teachers who dedicate their entire workday to young people interested in their future juridical carriers”.

An example of dedication is Professor Rusu too, permanently struggling to underline “the importance of the chosen field and its contribution in promoting the fundamental values of a society in continuous change and evolution”. He confessed with enthusiasm: “What can be more satisfying, more attractive, for a teacher than seeing that, after graduation, his former student is concretely engaged in juridical procedures, as a judge, prosecutor, notary, lawyer or, later, manager of a private or state institution?!”.  

Professor Rusu always got involved in the scientific activities organized by the University, a illustrative example being the DAIE Conference about which he says that significantly helped at increasing the reputation of Danubius among the neighbor states – The Republic of Moldavia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Serbia, countries where he promoted, together with his fellow colleagues, the image of the institutions and its research activity.  

Ion Rusu doesn’t miss any participation at EIRP Conferences, annual opportunities for him to present his studies and scientific papers that substantially contribute to the development of the science of law. 

With regard to his academic endeavors, he is author, co-author or coordinator of 17 books and of over 73 studies and articles. At present, he focuses on wrapping up a comprehensive course entitled “Drept penal. Partea Specială (Criminal Law. Special Part)”, having in plan to finalize the last two volumes in a collection of  five, the first three being already published – no less than 1600 pages. About this accomplishment, Professor Rusu says that “thorough examination of these crimes, references to recent judiciary practice, references to the Constitutional Court’s and High Court of Cassation and Justice’s decisions, to older or more up-to-date doctrines, make of this course an useful one both for practitioners and for academia”.    

Moreover, the professor is to publish, as a coordinator, the following master courses: “Individualization of Criminal Law Penalties” and “Judiciary International Cooperation in the Criminal Field”.

Reckoning that he is clearly “inclined towards making effort”, Ion Rusu explained that he likes to honor his duty with modesty and to offer his help whenever it’s needed.  

Asked what message he would want to send to the Danubian community, Professor Rusu used a single overreaching line: “lots of luck in the foreseeable future, luck that will definitely come due to high-performance management and to group power”.

 

Assoc. Senior Lecturer Petra Alina Marinescu

PR&MEDIA Consultant


Professor of the Month - October

Professor Cristinel Munteanu, PhD, Dr. habil.

“Danubius” University of Galati, Romania

Faculty of Communication and International Relations

 

RECENT EXCELLENT ACHIEVEMENTS

In 2021 (in collaboration with Professor Klaas Willems from University of Ghent, Belgium), Cristinel Munteanu edited a fundamental book, Eugenio Coseriu. Past, Present and Future, published at De Gruyter (Berlin/Boston).

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110712391/html

 

About this book

The volume is published on the occasion of the birth centennial of Eugenio Coseriu (1921–2002). It is the first collective volume to appear in English in which various scholars present a variety of perspectives on Coseriu’s scholarly work and discuss its continuing relevance for the language sciences. Coseriu’s international reputation has suffered from his commitment to publish in languages such as Spanish, German, French, Italian, Romanian and Portuguese, to the detriment of English. As a consequence, his work is less well-known outside Romance and German linguistics. The volume aims to raise the general awareness of Coseriu’s work among linguists around the world, in accordance with Coseriu’s own adage that it takes a constructive mindset (acknowledging “accomplishments and limitations”) to do justice to all scholarly work in the humanities. The articles are organized into three major thematic clusters: 1) philosophy of language, 2) history of the language sciences and 3) theory and practice of “Integral Linguistics”. The volume is essential reading for anyone working in these fields and for those seeking to gain deeper understanding of Coseriu’s goal to develop a unitary approach to language which takes as its point of departure the “activity of speaking”.

 

Biography

  • Cristinel Munteanu is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology within the “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, Romania (specialization: Romanian-English, in 2001; master’s degree in Theory and Practice of Text, in 2003).
  • In 2006 he obtained the title of PhD in philology (magna cum laude) at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, guided by Professor Stelian Dumistrăcel, with the thesis “Phraseological Synonymy in the Romanian Language from the Integral Linguistics Point of View” (published in 2007; frequently cited in the specialized studies). It refers to the first important application (in the Romanian science) of Coseriu’s linguistic theory to the lexico-phraseological field and of semantic relations.
  • In 2017 (at the same university of Iasi), under the guidance of Professor Ştefan Afloroaei (corresponding member of the Romanian Academy), Cr. Munteanu defended his second PhD thesis, receiving the title of PhD in philosophy (summa cum laude). The chosen subject was“John Dewey and the Problem of Meaning. From the Theory of Inquiry to the Premises of an Integral Hermeneutics”, investigating a series of aspects connected to logic, theories of interpretation and philosophy of language.The respective doctoral thesis was published in 2019.
  • In 2019 (at the University of Pitesti)Cr. Munteanu defended his habilitation thesis (From Phraseologisms to Discourse Traditions. Etymological and Stylistic Contributions) and was conferred the title ofhabilitation (post-doctoral qualification), i.e. Dr. habil. In 2020, he became a full professor at “Danubius” University of Galati. Since 2020, he has been the Director of the Center for Hermeneutics “Symbols and Texts” (CHeST) at the same university.
  • Cr.M. has been working in the field of higher education for over 15 years, teaching mainly subjects from the sphere of communication/language sciences and journalism, and also from the domain of philosophy (Fundamentals of Communication, Introduction to Mass-media, Semiotics, Rhetoric, Journalistic Genres, Writing Techniques, Principles of Correct Usage, Critical Thinking, Ethicsetc.).

 

Research Areas

  • Author of many studies and articles on the etymology, dynamics and stylistics of phraseologisms, coordinator, editor and co-author of a book devoted to set phrases and famous formulae (Discursul repetat între alteritate şi creativitate [“Repeated Discourse between Alterity and Creativity”], 2008), Cristinel Munteanu has become an authority thanks to his book Frazeologie românească. Formare şi funcţionare [“Romanian Phraseology. Its Forming and Functioning”] (2013), which led to him being selected as an author of chapter “Phraséologie du roumain” in the volume“Le Roumain” of the series “Manuals of Romance Linguistics”(soon to be published at the famous publishing house De Gruyter).
  • At the same time, his constant preoccupation (of over 15 years) for the linguistic theory of the scholar Eugenio Coseriu (materialised, among others, in his books Lingvistica integrală coşeriană. Teorie, aplicaţii şi Interviuri[“The Coserian Integral Linguistics. Theory, Applications and Interviews”] (2012) and Traditions and Innovations in Language and Linguistics. A Coserian Perspective, 2017) led to him being invited at various international and national congresses, symposia and conferences. So far, Cr. Munteanu has participated in over 50 scientific events (from congresses to colloquiums), most of them international.
  • He has published over 200 specialized articles, studies and reviews in Romanian research volumes and journals (“Meridian critic”, “Anadiss”,“Communication interculturelle et littérature”, “Limba română”, “Acta Universitatis Danubius. Communicatio”, etc.), as well as international ones (“Energeia”,“Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences”, “Romanistisches Jahrbuch”, etc.). Some of his articles have already been publishedin ISI journals, such as“Revue roumaine de linguistique”, “Philologica Jassyensia” and“Zeitschrift für romanisch Philologie”.

[https://univ-danubius.academia.edu/CristinelMunteanu]

  • Other (acknowledged) contributions of Cr.M. refer to the field of anthroponomy (studies on the names of literary characters), rhetoric, functional stylistics and philosophy of language (with a special emphasis on Plato, Aristotle, Demetrios, Pseudo-Hermogeneset alii), semiotics (he restored and redefined the term “aberrant decoding”, launched by Umberto Eco), journalism (he has original approaches on either the stylistic virtues of journalistic text or the atypical headlines), text linguistics, hermeneutics etc.
  • What is more, Cr.M.’s activity as an editor is also worth mentioning. In this respect, Cr.M. edited critically (in 2008), in a bilingual version (in collaboration with the classical philologist Cr. Bejan), the first PhD thesis in the world dedicated to journalism: Tobias Peucer, De relationibus novellis/Despre relatările jurnalistice[“On News Reporting”, Leipzig, 1690] –a reference text for the researchers interested in the history and theory of this domain. In 2013 he edited, from the impressive work of B.P. Hasdeu, a volume entitledStudii de ştiinţa limbii[“Studies in Language Sciences”], emphasizing some very modern ideas of the Romanian scholar (such as the ones about “noematology”). In 2016 he published, as a translator and editor, the book Orientări în semantica structurală [orig. version: E. Coseriu, H. Geckeler, Trends in Structural Semantics, 1981]. The same purpose, that of restoring the great thinkers’ conceptions, was aimed at when he translated (from English) some philosophical texts signed by John Dewey,R.G. Collingwoodet alii.

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