Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Anca M. Pusca BA, MA, PhD

I joined the Goldsmiths Politics department in 2008 after running a two year Marie Curie research project on disillusionment in the new EU accession countries at the University of Birmingham. Before that, I was an Adjunct Professor at American University in Washington DC where I also received my MA and PhD in International Relations and Comparative and Regional Studies in 2002 and 2006 respectively.

Teaching

I currently teach the MA unit on Theories of International Relations, the 2nd year unit on Contemporary International Relations: Theory and Practice, and the second term of the 1st year unit on World Politics.

Areas of supervision

Aesthetics and politics, post-communist transitions, social change, EU enlargement, Walter Benjamin studies. Feel free to approach me during my office hours or via email with questions about possible supervision.

PhD supervision:
Aya Hino
Kenan Aksu

Presentations and exhibitions

Interviews

Pusca, Anca (2010). "Rachel Garfield in conversation with Raimi Gbadamosi and Anca Pusca" Postcolonial Studies 13(2): 133-145.

Research interests

My research focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the context of post-communist transitions. Using the work of Walter Benjamin as a main source of inspiration, it seeks to understand processes of change as embedded in the material and visual environment surrounding us. My recent publications have focused on the process of illusion formation and disillusionment at the individual and collective level within traumatic periods such as the 1989 Romanian Revolution and its immediate aftermath; understanding shock in periods of transition; and reading change in aestheticizing practices such as photography and muzeumization of industrial ruins, urban regeneration, film and online communication. My current research seeks to re-conceptualize the aesthetics of change within the context of today’s EU and its candidate states, by tracing spatial, architectural and visual representations and responses to EU’s most important policies: from immigration, monetary and the common agricultural policy to constitutional reform.

I have recently finished working on a book on Revolution, Democratic Transition and Disillusionment that will be coming out in October 2008 with the University of Manchester Press, which focuses on the Romanian post-communist transition from the perspective of the Timisoara revolutionaries and the founders of the Group for Social Dialogue – the first civil society organization in democratic Romania. I am currently working on an edited volume on Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Change, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009, which brings together a number of important Benjamin scholars focusing on questions of contemporary change and transition.

Selected publications

Books

• Pusca, Anca (2009) The European Union in Crisis: Constitutional Reform and New Enlargements. IDEA and CEU Press: New York
• Pusca, Anca (2009) Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Change. Palgrave Macmillan: London and New York.
• Pusca, Anca (2008) Revolution, Democratic Transition and Disillusionment: The Case of Romania. University of Manchester Press: London and New York.
• Pusca, Anca (2004) European Union: Promises and Challenges of a New Enlargement. IDEA and CEU Press: New York.

     

Articles

• Pusca, Anca (2010) “Rethinking Space through The Wire” (forthcoming)
• Pusca, Anca (2010) “Aestheticizing Industrial and Human Ruins of Post Communist Europe” Space and Culture 13(3) (forthcoming)
• Pusca, Anca (2009) “’Born to shop’: malls, dream-worlds and capitalism” Journal of International Relations and Development 12: 370-377.
• Pusca, Anca (2009) "Walter Benjamin, a Methodological Contribution" International Political Sociology 3: 238-254
• Pusca, Anca (2008) “Visualizing the EU” Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs 16(1): 5-22.
• Pusca, Anca (2008) “The Aesthetics of Change” Global Society 22(3): 369-386.
• Pusca, Anca (2007) “Shock, Therapy and Postcommunist Transitions” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 32(3): 341-360.