Events dedicated to Prof. Victor Ieronim Stoichiță

April 7, 1:30 p.m., University of Bucharest Rectorate, Senate Hall (90 Panduri Road)
The ceremony conferring the title of Doctor Honoris Causa upon Mr. Victor Ieronim Stoichiță, professor emeritus at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), Romania’s foremost image theorist and art historian.

April 8, 5:00 p.m., “Carol I” Central University Library, Auditorium (88 Calea Victoriei)
Victor Ieronim Stoichiță – ABOUT DREAMS – Keynote Lecture

The lecture is related to his impressive recent work, *La fabrique du rêve. Songe et représentation au seuil de la modernité* (Éditions Hazan, 2024).

Long before the Surrealist revolution, the history of art and imagery had already grappled with dreamlike experiences, which it sought to render in a visible form. The phenomenon is significant above all because of the challenges posed by moving beyond the strictly verbal framework involved in the “narration” (oral or textual) of a dream—with all its difficulties and pitfalls—by resorting to a fundamentally visual account. This playback Visual learning involves a number of specific challenges. This conference aims to address them (Victor Ieronim Stoichiță)

What is the place of the dream’s illusion in the age of the invention of perspective? What challenges does the representation of altered states of consciousness pose at the moment of the discovery of the cogito? How is the status of the dream sign defined in the realm of painting? The most important artists, from Raphael and Michelangelo to Vermeer, from Giotto and Dürer to Bosch and Schongauer, have grappled with these questions, attempting to offer a series of answers. Others, less well-known, have raised these questions, challenging, through their approach, the ideas of classical oneiromancy as well as the viewer’s interpretive abilities. Through this critical reflection at the intersection of dream interpretation and image analysis, Victor Ieronim Stoichiță addresses a fundamental hermeneutic problem: how to approach the indistinct, the unclear, the imprecise, the obscure, the vague. (trans. from Fr. Humanitas)

April 9, 4:00 p.m., Reading Room, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest (5–7 Edgar Quinet Street)

ABOUT AUTOBIOGRAPHY – Roundtable Discussion

Participants:
Victor Ieronim Stoichiță, Professor Emeritus at the University of Fribourg
Ana Blandiana, writer, corresponding member of the Romanian Academy
Sorin Alexandrescu, Professor Emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, founding director of CESI, honorary member of the Romanian Academy
Iulian Boldea, professor at the “G.E. Palade” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Târgu Mureș, editor-in-chief of the journal Vatra.

The moderator of the event, Sorin Alexandrescu, will open the discussion with Victor Ieronim Stoichiță’s autobiography, *Farewell to Bucharest: A Story* (translated from French by Mona Antohi, Humanitas, 2024 [2015], pp. 193–194). Published in French in 2014, it was awarded the Prize for the Promotion of the French Language and Literature by the French Academy in 2015. The discussion will also explore the relationship between personal identity, history, text and image, cultural belonging, memoirs, and the diary.

Main promoters and organizers:
Sorin Alexandrescu and Laura Mesina

Institutional partners:
The "Carol I" Central University Library, New Europe College, Humanitas, and the IMAGORA-CESI Association.