Biographical Notes
Ileana V. Nachescu 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 (1974-1983): A History is currently under contract with the University of Illinois Press.
An award-winning educator, Ileana Nachescu received a Humanities Plus grant to integrate 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 in presenting at the NJ WGS Consortium Undergraduate Research Colloquium. Rutgers students have received First and Second Prize in this statewide competition.
In her creative nonfiction, Nachescu attempts to map the fraught and shifting contours of home from an immigrant’s perspective. She is at work on a book-length project, Memoirs of a Socialist Childhood, exploring the articulations of gender, class, and race in a society of equals. Her 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 serving on the Executive Council of the New Brunswick chapter of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, on the editorial board of the journal Rejoinder, and on the Advisory Board of the Center for European Studies. She is currently a Seminar Fellow with the Institute for Research on Women.
Awards, Fellowships & Grants
Research Council Grant, Rutgers University (2023 and 2020)
Humanities Plus Grant, Rutgers University (2019)
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 Feminist (1974-1983): A History. Under contract with the University of Illinois Press.
Nachescu, Ileana. “‘The Kind of World We Wanted to Be In’: Protocol Feminism and Participatory Democracy in Intersectional Consciousness-Raising Groups.” Forthcoming in Feeling Democracy, eds. Arlene Stein and Sarah Tobias (Rutgers University Press).
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/.
Nachescu, Ileana. “Walks in the Park: On the Foreignness of the Socialist Past.” Boston Review, December 20, 2019. http://bostonreview.net/arts-in-society/ileana-nachescu-walks-park-socialism-romania.
