CRISTINA VATULESCU

Cristina VATULESCU is an assistant professor in the Comparative Literature Department at New York University. Her current project, Police Aesthetics: Literature, Film and The Secret Police in Soviet Times, is due to appear in August 2010 from Stanford University Press. The book explores the relationships between cultural and policing practices in twentieth century Eastern Europe. Taking advantage of the partial opening of the secret police archives in Russia and Romania, Vatulescu focuses on their most infamous holdings-the personal files-as well as on the agency's less known involvement with cinema. Two articles stemming from this project, "Arresting Biographies: The Secret Police File in The Soviet Union and Romania," and "Politics of Estrangement: Tracking Shklovsky's Device in Literary and Policing Practices" have been published in Comparative Literature and Poetics Today.