Anca Parvulescu

Anca Parvulescu is the Liselotte Dieckmann Professor in Comparative Literature and a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, within the College of Arts & Sciences. Her research spans global modernism, literary theory, comparatism, migration studies, and East European cultures. She holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota (2000) and joined Washington University in 2006. Her work bridges literary scholarship with interdisciplinary frameworks like world-systems analysis and affect theory.

• Education: BA in English Literature (University of Timișoara), PhD in English and Comparative Literature (University of Minnesota).
• Awards: René Wellek Prize (2023), Barrington Moore Award (2023), multiple honorary mentions for Creolizing the Modern.

Her research explores how modernist literature reconfigures concepts like the face (Face and Form, 2025), migration’s role in European identity (The Traffic in Women’s Work, 2014), and the comparative method through Transylvanian case studies. Recent articles emphasize the intersection of literary comparatism with global history. She co-edits a Journal of World Literature issue on global modernism’s facial aesthetics.

Her scholarship is supported by grants like the ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship. Beyond academia, her work influences art exhibitions and interdisciplinary dialogues on laughter’s cultural significance. She mentors scholars in comparative humanities, advocating for a humanistic counter to nationalism through transnational frameworks.