We are happy to welcome a new colleague at the Department of Art History , Dr. Cosmin Minea. He joins the Centre of Modern Art and Theory as a PI of GAČR Postdoc Individual Fellowship project entitled The First Histories of Architecture and the Creation of National Heritage in South-Eastern Europe (1860-1930). (GN22-19492I).

Short Bio

Cosmin Minea is a Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) postdoctoral researcher in the Art History Department at Masaryk University in Brno. He was previously a Swiss Postdoctoral Excellence Scholar at ETH Zürich, an ERC researcher and postdoctoral fellow at New Europe College, Bucharest (2020-2023). He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, awarded in July 2020, with a thesis titled ‚Old Buildings for Modern Times: The Rise of Architectural Monuments as Symbols of The State in Late 19th Century Romania‘. Before and during his PhD he was also a pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Bielefeld and a doctoral fellow at the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz as well as research assistant and lecturer at the University of Birmingham. He holds an MA in Central European History from Central European University, Budapest. He has published about Romanian architects and architecture, art historiography and national ideology in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. For a list of publications see https://muni.academia.edu/CosminMinea

Project: The First Histories of Architecture and the Creation of National Heritage in South-Eastern Europe (1860-1930). A Transnational Approach

The project proposes a novel, comparative and transnational analysis of the entangled histories of architecture of the South-Eastern European states (Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria) and neighbouring regions or countries in South-Eastern parts of the Habsburg Empire (Bukovina, Hungary) from the mid-19th century to 1914. The project will investigate the overlapping and competing ideas about the historical monuments and the cultural identity of these regions that are marked by a common history and a shared heritage but also by individual national ideologies developed since the 19th century. The project will thus lead to a different understanding of historical monuments and of the ways modern identities were formed, with a much more careful appreciation for the significance of transnational networks and collaborations and less for individual and often exclusionary national ideologies.

It further has other ambitious goals. It seeks to describe for the first time together little-known architectural writings that are essential for the process of identity formation in South-Eastern Europe. It will propose a new methodology for transnational studies in the region and will prove the Global significance of SEE.

The project will last for three years and will include publications, research trips, an international conference and a seminar series.