Biographical Notes
Ileana Nachescu (she/ea) is a scholar of intersectional and transnational feminism. She co-founded the first Women’s Studies Center at her alma mater, the University of the West, Timisoara, Romania. Her monograph titled The National Alliance of Black Feminists: A History has recently been published by the University of Illinois Press.
An award-winning educator, Ileana Nachescu received two Humanities Plus grants (in 2019 and 2024) to integrate zines and podcasts into feminist pedagogy, and has presented on teaching with podcasts at several conferences. As the director of the WGSS Honors Program, she teaches WGSS 497-498, the Honors Research Seminar, and mentors students presenting at the NJ WGS Consortium Undergraduate Research Colloquium. Rutgers students have received First and Second Prize in this statewide competition.
Nachescu’s next two projects are a memoir titled A Socialist Childhood and a series of essays on deforestation in Romania, documenting the destructive effects of neoliberal capitalism and environmental racism on Europe’s last old-growth forest and the people living near it. Nachescu’s work has been translated into Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and Romanian. She has recently started writing in Romanian again, participating in current debates about intersectionality in Romanian culture.
Nachescu is currently the co-chair, alongside Cecilia Colbeth, of the New Jersey Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium. She is serving on the University Committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; on the Executive Council of the New Brunswick chapter of Rutgers AAUP-AFT; on the editorial board of the journal IRW’s journal Rejoinder; and on the Advisory Board of the Center for European Studies.
Awards, Fellowships & Grants
Seminar Fellow, Center for Cultural Analysis, 2025-2026
Humanities Plus Grant, Rutgers University (2024; 2019)
Seminar Fellow, Institute for Research on Women, 2023-2024
Research Council Grant, Rutgers University (2023; 2020)
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University (2006-2008)
Excellence in Teaching Award, University at Buffalo (2004)
Doctoral Support Grant, Open Society Institute (2003)
Recent Academic Publications
Nachescu, Ileana. The National Alliance of Black Feminists: A History. University of Illinois Press, 2025.
Nachescu, Ileana. “‘The Kind of World We Wanted to Be In’: Protocol Feminism and Participatory Democracy in Intersectional Consciousness-Raising Groups.” In Feeling Democracy, eds. Arlene Stein and Sarah Tobias, 192-225. (Rutgers University Press, 2024).
Nachescu, Ileana. “Censoring Anglogynophobia: Reconsidering the Disappearance of the National Alliance of Black Feminists.” Feminist Studies 47, no. 1 (2021): 201-229. https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.47.1.0201
Recent Public Writing
Nachescu, Ileana. “Revolta cititorilor. Libertatea, September 5, 2023. https://www.libertatea.ro/opinii/o-profesoara-plecata-din-romania-si-care-preda-in-sua-intervine-in-polemica-literara-a-momentului-revolta-cititorilor-4651734
Nachescu, Ileana, and Tereza Hendl. "Writing from Eastern Europe: Epistemic Justice in Knowledge Production about Europe's East," AWSS Newsletter, Summer 2023, https://mailchi.mp/4e33adfc32be/news-from-awss-vol-11-issue-1-spring-15824884?e=c265d27350
Nachescu, Ileana. “Ukraine: Beyond the Postsoviet.” Boston Review, March 4, 2022. https://bostonreview.net/articles/ukraine-beyond-the-postsoviet/.