We are delighted to welcome Gruia Bădescu as a Visiting Fellow!
Gruia Bădescu is a Research Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz. He holds a PhD from the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research at the University of Cambridge and, before joining Konstanz, was a lecturer and research associate at the University of Oxford. At Konstanz, he was first an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, hosted by Jan and Aleida Assmann, and is now leading a research group on cities after political ruptures. His research examines the relationship between urban reconfigurations and the societal processing of difficult pasts after wars and political transitions. He is the founder and convener of the Memory, Space and Place working group of the Memory Studies Association.
In his research he is interested in the relationship between urban reconfigurations and the societal processing of difficult pasts, especially after political violence during wars and dictatorships. One focus is on the reconstruction of cities after wars, where his research concentrates on the former Yugoslavia and Lebanon. He also analyzes the memorialization of political violence under authoritarian regimes in South America and in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, he has examined how dictatorships reshaped cities through large-scale demolitions and evictions. Across contexts of war and dictatorship, he has traced how local actors framed destruction and urban interventions as forms of violence against cities. During his TraCe Fellowship, he will work on the conceptualization of urban violence and will deliver the keynote at the TraCe Colloquium on „Urban Violence“.