Valer Cosma received a PhD in History at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania in 2013. Between 2105 and 2017 he was researcher in the research project: “East-West”. Vernacular religion on the Boundary of Eastern and Western Chritianity: Continuity, Changes and Interactions hosted by the HAS Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Ethnography in Budapest (Hungary). He is a member of the Seminar for Historical Anthropology (Seminarul de Antropologie istorică), Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Introduction
Valer Cosma received a PhD in History at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania in 2013. Between 2105 and 2017 he was researcher in the research project: “East-West”. Vernacular religion on the Boundary of Eastern and Western Chritianity: Continuity, Changes and Interactions hosted by the HAS Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Ethnography in Budapest (Hungary). He is a member of the Seminar for Historical Anthropology (Seminarul de Antropologie istorică), Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Kutatási terület
He is the founder and organizer of the annual “Telciu Summer Conferences” since 2012 and Telciu Summer School since 2016. In 2016, together with other scholars from Romania and abroad, he founded the Center for the Study of Modernity and the Rural World in Telciu. He works on peasant religiosity, vernacular religion, modernity/coloniality and religion in Eastern Europe, nationalism, populism, political economy and electoral clientelism. In my ERC research project I examine the healing activities of the figure of the Romanian priest in Transylvanian villages in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My investigation is based mainly on archival sources from Cluj, Deva and Sibiu, along with the liturgical literature and collections of floklore from the second half of the nineteenth century.
Research field
He is the founder and organizer of the annual “Telciu Summer Conferences” since 2012 and Telciu Summer School since 2016. In 2016, together with other scholars from Romania and abroad, he founded the Center for the Study of Modernity and the Rural World in Telciu. He works on peasant religiosity, vernacular religion, modernity/coloniality and religion in Eastern Europe, nationalism, populism, political economy and electoral clientelism. In my ERC research project I examine the healing activities of the figure of the Romanian priest in Transylvanian villages in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My investigation is based mainly on archival sources from Cluj, Deva and Sibiu, along with the liturgical literature and collections of floklore from the second half of the nineteenth century.
A) Fontosabb publikációk / Selected publications
2015: ”Lupta clerului cu mentalitățile satului”. Paradigma ”Popa Tanda” în istoriografia eceziastică recentă [„The clergy’s struggle against the villages mentalities”. The ”Popa Tanda” paradigm within the Romanian ecclesiastical historiography]. In Valer Simion Cosma (ed.): Religie-Cultură-Societate. Perspective interdisciplinare asupra vieții religioase/Religion-Culture-Society. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religious Life. Cluj-Napoca: Eikon-Școala Ardeleană.
2015: ”Părințele Costandine, caută-mi în carte bine”: Preotul ca „păscălier” în lumea țărănească a românilor ardeleni din secolul al XIX-lea [The priest as „păscălier” the Romanian rural society from Transylvania of the 19th century]. In Cristina Bogdan – Alexandru Ofrim (eds): Pentru o istorie culturală a cărții și a practicilor de lectură. București: Editura Universității din București.
2015 (ed.): Religie-Cultură-Societate. Perspective interdisciplinare asupra vieții religioase. Cluj-Napoca: Eikon-Școala Ardeleană.
2014 (eds with Edit Szegedi): Carte-Cunoaștere-Identitate. Studii culturale/Buch-Wissen-Identität. Kulturwissenschaftliche studien (RO-DE). (Book-Knowledge-Identity. Cultural Studies.) Cluj-Napoca: Eikon.
2014: Der Priester, die Wunderheilung und das Buch in der bäuerlichen Welt Siebenbürgens im 19. Jh. [The priest, the healing and the book in the rural society from Transylvania of the 19th century]. In Valer Simion Cosma – Edit Szegedi (eds): Carte-Cunoaștere-Identitate. Studii culturale/Buch-Wissen-Identität. Kulturwissenschaftliche studien (RO-DE). (Book-Knowledge-Identity. Cultural Studies.) Cluj-Napoca: Eikon.
2014: Dincolo de mitul modern al vampirilor. Strigoii în lumea țărănească a românilor ardeleni din secolele XVIII-XIX [Beyond the modern myth of vampire. Strigoii in Romanian rural society from Transylvania of the 18th and 19th centuries]. In Pavel Puşcaş – Valentin Trifescu – Simion Molnar – Vali Ilyes (eds): Geografii identitare-identităţi culturale I. Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană.
2014: Preotul ca „intelectual” în lumea ţărănească a românilor din Transilvania secolului al XIX-lea [The Priest as „intelectual” in the Romanian rural society from Transylvania of the 19th century]. In Aurel Chiriac – Sorin Şipoş (eds): Seminatores in artium liberalium agro. Studia in honorem et memoriam Barbu Ştefănescu. Cluj-Napoca – Oradea: Centrul de Studii Transilvane – Academia Română – Editura Muzeului Țării Crișurilor.
B) A projekt keretében megjelent publikációk / Works published in the project
2018: Ioan Halmaghi and the „Wondrous Craft” of the Păscălie. Bibliomancy and the Calculation Systems of Eastern Chronology at the End of Eighteenth Century. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 62. (Forthcoming).
2018: Curses, Incantations and the Undoing of Spells: The Romanian Priest as Enchanter (Transylvania, 19th Century). In Éva Pócs – James Kapalo (eds): Charms, Charmers and Charming, Budapest: CEU Press. (Forthcoming).
2017: Popular Mythology, Church Teachings and Masses in the Romanian Communities of Transylvania in the Second-Half of the Nineteenth Century. In Maria-Luiza Dumitru Oancea – Ramona Mihăilă (eds): Myth, Symbol and Ritual: Elucidatory Paths to the Fanstastic Unreality. București: Editura Universității din București, 167–182.
