.2024
The Conferences of Creativity debut this year at the Romanian Creative Week with a series of cultural and scientific presentations and dialogues led by four of the most important contemporary intellectuals: Horia-Roman Patapievici, Andrei Pleșu, Vasile Bănescu, and Ioan Stanomir.
The event aims to encourage and promote open, honest, refined dialogue based on arguments and inspired by current and major cultural themes. Literature, ethics, morality, education, and the sciences are the core around which the Conferences of Creativity will be built and branched out, year after year, along with the fourth edition of RCW.
Schedule
May 16th
18:00 – 19:30
Ioan Stanomir: “Russia and Us. Some Reflections”
May 17th
17:30 – 19:00
Andrei Pleșu & Vasile Bănescu: “On Civility”
May 18th
17:30 – 19:00
Horia-Roman Patapievici: “The Three Lives”
Guests
Andrei Pleșu
Andrei Pleșu, philosopher and writer, is the founder of the cultural weekly Dilema (Dilema veche), founder and president of the New Europe Foundation, and rector of the New Europe College. He is a member of the World Academy of Art and Science and the Académie Internationale de Philosophie de l’Art.
Among his published works are: Minima Moralia: Elements for an Ethics of Interval (1988), On Angels (2003), On the Forgotten Beauty of Life (2011), The Parables of Jesus: Truth as Story (2012), Masterpieces in Dialogue (2023).
Horia-Roman Patapievici
Horia-Roman Patapievici, writer, physicist, and philosopher, is a founding member of the Romanian Academic Society, the Research Group on the Foundations of European Modernity (University of Bucharest and New Europe College), as well as an honorary member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute – Romania. He made his press debut in 1992 (Contrapunct) and has had various collaborations with publications such as 22, LA&I, Dilema, Orizont, Vatra, Secolul 20, etc.
Among his published works are: The Sky Seen Through a Lens (1995), Flight into the Arrow’s Range (1995), Recent Man (2001), On Ideas and Obstacles (2007), Two Essays on Paradise and a Conclusion (2015), The Ugly Years (2019).
Ioan Stanomir
Ioan Stanomir is a writer and professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest.
Among his published works are: A Lost World: Four Personal Histories Followed by a Dialogue with H.-R. Patapievici (2004), The Conservative Spirit: From Barbu Catargiu to Nicolae Iorga (2008), The Russian Sphinx: Ideas, Identities, and Obsessions (2015), Communism Inc. (with Angelo Mitchievici, 2016), Russia, 1917: The Blood-Soaked Sun. Autocracy, Revolution, and Authoritarianism (2017), At the Centenary: Rereading the Century of Greater Romania (2018). In 2018, he published the essay “The Shadow of Russia” at Humanitas Publishing House, in the collective volume “Here come the Russians! 5 perspectives on a dangerous neighborhood.”
Vasile Bănescu
Vasile Bănescu, theologian and Christian journalist, with studies in Germany and a doctoral degree in Literature, is a patriarchal advisor and, since 2015, the first layperson to hold the position of spokesperson for the Romanian Patriarchate.
He is an active voice in the public sphere, with his messages consistently anchored in the life of the Church and the city. Since 2012, he has been the host of the program “Faith and Culture” broadcasted by Trinitas TV.
Among his published works are: The Imagination of Hope: Paths to God (2018, co-authored with the prose writer, poet, and translator Monica Pillat), Homo Religiosus and the Simulacra of Reality (2019, co-authored with Prof. Dr. Nicu Gavriluță, sociologist, anthropologist, and essayist).
Curator
Ramona Ursu
Ramona Ursu, the communication manager of Romanian Creative Week and the curator of the Creativity Conferences of RCW, is a journalist and writer, irreversibly in love with journalism, since 2001, and with creativity, since… always.
She has worked successively as a reporter at Evenimentul zilei, then served for 9 years as coordinating editor and deputy editor-in-chief within the Adevărul media trust. In March 2018, she co-founded, with other journalists, Newsweek Romania, where she served as senior editor, and since 2020, she has been the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Ziare.com.
In 2022, she founded the opinion and interview platform SunMedia.ro, and in February 2024, with several journalists from Romania and the Republic of Moldova, she founded the online newspaper MediaQuality.ro.
In 2021, she received the “Oscar Berger” Award from the Timișoara Society for „high professionalism, civic spirit, courageous and responsible approach to major themes in Romanian society, and for promoting a spirit of journalistic elegance and good faith”.
Between 2016 and 2019, Ramona published four books, three of which were edited by Humanitas.