Overview
Răzvan Dumitru’s current research interests focus on transnational cultural exchanges and the circulation of ideas through visual experience in rural Europe during the nineteenth century. Building upon his doctoral work on the modernization process in East-Central European rural society, his current project, “Kerchiefs, Scarves, and Ribbons: The Nineteenth-Century Global Textile Trade and the Shaping of Taste in Rural Europe,” investigates the cultural history of nineteenth-century rural communities across Europe, using textile production as a lens for visual experience.
The project traces the circulation and adoption of textiles as agents of cultural transmission, examining how industrially produced, affordable goods redesigned local folk costume and became markers of social and cultural group identity. By situating rural consumption within transnational and global contexts, the research demonstrates how everyday objects mediate broader processes of cultural transformation within different segments of society.
Răzvan Dumitru’s work seeks to provide new perspectives on the interplay between material culture and collective identity while promoting interdisciplinary dialogue across history and digital humanities, particularly using large-scale image recognition and machine learning tools.
Academic Interests:
Public History, Oral History & Memory, Rural History, Visual Culture, Digital Humanities
Study Grants:
Erasmus+ Scholarship (01.2015-07.2015) University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Erasmus Scholarship (02.2013-07.2013) University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Affiliations
Academic and Professional Affiliations:
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Venice, Italy): Researcher (July 2025-present)
Society of Historical Demography (Paris, France): Member (January 2025-present)
University of Strasbourg (Strasbourg, France): Associate Member (November 2024-present)
Royal Historical Society (London, United Kingdom): Associate Fellow (December 2024-present)
The Institute of Genealogy and Heraldry (Iași, Romania): Member (November 2024-present)
Social History Society (Lancaster, United Kingdom): Member (September 2024-present)
Centre Roland Mousnier (Paris, France): Associate Researcher (June 2024-June 2025)
European Commission (Brussels, Belgium): Cultural Projects Assistant - Blue Book Trainee (October 2021-February 2022)
Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice, Italy): Education and Museum Management Intern (February 2019)
UNESCO (Venice, Italy): International Projects Assistant, UN Intern (September 2016-March 2017)