Irina Dumitrescu
@irinadumitrescu.bsky.social
Writer and professor of medieval literature. I'm a columnist at the TLS, sometimes co-host a podcast with Mary Wellesley at the LRB, and am one of the editors of @creativecritical.bsky.social.
irinadumitrescu.com
irinadumitrescu.com
Sometimes I think if I could go back to 2008 and tell grad student Irina about my creative life today, there's nothing about it she'd have an easy time believing.
November 19, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Sometimes I think if I could go back to 2008 and tell grad student Irina about my creative life today, there's nothing about it she'd have an easy time believing.
I can't be there, sadly, but some of my Toronto friends might want to know about the launch of this year's Best Canadian Poetry!
November 10, 2025 at 8:23 PM
I can't be there, sadly, but some of my Toronto friends might want to know about the launch of this year's Best Canadian Poetry!
There's a special pleasure to being in the UK and picking up a copy of @thetls.bsky.social with my column at the back. Because I write for publications based abroad (i.e. not in Germany) it's a rare experience.
October 23, 2025 at 4:17 PM
There's a special pleasure to being in the UK and picking up a copy of @thetls.bsky.social with my column at the back. Because I write for publications based abroad (i.e. not in Germany) it's a rare experience.
I just did a little more research and found out the goat deal was a myth. Disappointing, but good to know the truth. Karl Marx was indeed imprisoned in the university jail when a student tho.
www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...
www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...
September 22, 2025 at 7:38 AM
I just did a little more research and found out the goat deal was a myth. Disappointing, but good to know the truth. Karl Marx was indeed imprisoned in the university jail when a student tho.
www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...
www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...
I know just what you're wondering: is there a French Bridget Jones' Diary with a lovable-goofy heroine, a brooding Englishman, a fantasy version of the literary world, and every beat both utterly predictable and knocked out of the park? I present to you: "Jane Austen a gâché ma vie".
September 16, 2025 at 7:50 PM
I know just what you're wondering: is there a French Bridget Jones' Diary with a lovable-goofy heroine, a brooding Englishman, a fantasy version of the literary world, and every beat both utterly predictable and knocked out of the park? I present to you: "Jane Austen a gâché ma vie".
I'm in this photo and I don't like it.
August 25, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I'm in this photo and I don't like it.
Simply miserable time trying to get into writing headspace today, so I wrote down some rules for brutally pragmatic drafting. There is space for more -- what should go on here?
August 19, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Simply miserable time trying to get into writing headspace today, so I wrote down some rules for brutally pragmatic drafting. There is space for more -- what should go on here?
From David Bayles & Ted Orland's book, Art & Fear
August 12, 2025 at 7:07 AM
From David Bayles & Ted Orland's book, Art & Fear
Dr. Gabriele Cocco (Bergamo) will be giving a talk on the Old English Apollonius of Tyre on July 1, at 6:15 pm CEST. Due to extreme heat, the talk will be streamed via Zoom for Bonn University students. Other interested persons are welcome to join us as well!
uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/6612844836...
uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/6612844836...
June 30, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Dr. Gabriele Cocco (Bergamo) will be giving a talk on the Old English Apollonius of Tyre on July 1, at 6:15 pm CEST. Due to extreme heat, the talk will be streamed via Zoom for Bonn University students. Other interested persons are welcome to join us as well!
uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/6612844836...
uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/6612844836...
Today at the University of Bonn's Bonn Lectures in the Public Humanities: Paulo Horta (NYU) will be giving us the low-down on publishing scholarly and trade books!
June 26, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Today at the University of Bonn's Bonn Lectures in the Public Humanities: Paulo Horta (NYU) will be giving us the low-down on publishing scholarly and trade books!
Very pleased that Prof. Jonathan Davis-Secord, of the University of New Mexico, will be here at Bonn on Monday, speaking on Grendel's mother and gender!
June 13, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Very pleased that Prof. Jonathan Davis-Secord, of the University of New Mexico, will be here at Bonn on Monday, speaking on Grendel's mother and gender!
Local bookstore advertising limited edition Thomas Mann Playmobil figure, holding a book that shows a page from Buddenbrooks. I have to order this, right?
May 22, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Local bookstore advertising limited edition Thomas Mann Playmobil figure, holding a book that shows a page from Buddenbrooks. I have to order this, right?
"I find it hard, in the hectic pace of everyday life, between the cooking and the teaching and the meetings and the laundry and the child’s bedtime — to stay with a novel I have chosen for my own pleasure long enough that I’m pulled through to the end."
open.substack.com/pub/irinadum...
open.substack.com/pub/irinadum...
May 17, 2025 at 11:44 PM
"I find it hard, in the hectic pace of everyday life, between the cooking and the teaching and the meetings and the laundry and the child’s bedtime — to stay with a novel I have chosen for my own pleasure long enough that I’m pulled through to the end."
open.substack.com/pub/irinadum...
open.substack.com/pub/irinadum...
Such a crisp fall apple of a book
May 16, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Such a crisp fall apple of a book
never enjoyed social media as much as today
May 8, 2025 at 7:22 PM
never enjoyed social media as much as today
Cicely Mary Hamilton's publication list suggests that if you have a good thing going, you should work it, work it, work it
April 29, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Cicely Mary Hamilton's publication list suggests that if you have a good thing going, you should work it, work it, work it
So proud to have two poems in the new issue of Confingo, so very impatient to hold it in my hands
April 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
So proud to have two poems in the new issue of Confingo, so very impatient to hold it in my hands
April 23, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Facebook memories tells me I shared this screenshot of a book I was reading exactly eight years ago. See if you can guess why.
April 19, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Facebook memories tells me I shared this screenshot of a book I was reading exactly eight years ago. See if you can guess why.
the richest country in the world is dead-set on outdoing communist romania in both tyranny and misery, this is really something to watch
April 4, 2025 at 11:58 AM
the richest country in the world is dead-set on outdoing communist romania in both tyranny and misery, this is really something to watch
Exactly 9 years ago I got to see my editor's copy of Rumba Under Fire: The Arts of Survival from West Point to Delhi.
punctumbooks.com/titles/rumba...
punctumbooks.com/titles/rumba...
March 8, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Exactly 9 years ago I got to see my editor's copy of Rumba Under Fire: The Arts of Survival from West Point to Delhi.
punctumbooks.com/titles/rumba...
punctumbooks.com/titles/rumba...
Cleopatra III after catching the latest news
February 28, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Cleopatra III after catching the latest news
"Writing is not now considered a collective exercise. The Romantic myth of the lone genius persists... The black and white author photo is this myth’s icon, the desk its fetish object"
@londonreview.bsky.social
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@londonreview.bsky.social
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
February 14, 2025 at 8:21 AM
"Writing is not now considered a collective exercise. The Romantic myth of the lone genius persists... The black and white author photo is this myth’s icon, the desk its fetish object"
@londonreview.bsky.social
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@londonreview.bsky.social
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Finally read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985). Don't agree with everything, but man do these paragraphs bear rereading everytime something new comes out of Silicon Valley
February 2, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Finally read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985). Don't agree with everything, but man do these paragraphs bear rereading everytime something new comes out of Silicon Valley
Very excited to be in an online roundtable on writing for the Medieval Academy of America next month. I think developing a writing practice that doesn't wait for long, uninterrupted periods of time is so important. It's also challenging, often exhausting, and surprisingly sustaining.
January 27, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Very excited to be in an online roundtable on writing for the Medieval Academy of America next month. I think developing a writing practice that doesn't wait for long, uninterrupted periods of time is so important. It's also challenging, often exhausting, and surprisingly sustaining.