Laura Vișan, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Laura Visan is an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Arts, Culture and Media (ACM) at the University of Toronto Scarborough and has a Ph.D. in communication from York University and Ryerson University in Toronto. She researched the process of social capital formation through civic participation and networking in the case of Romanian immigrants from Toronto. Having grown up in Romania, Laura has also written about the popular culture artefacts of the Nicolae Ceauşescu era, with a focus on the 1970s and 1980s. She has taught at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and at York University in Toronto.
“Recuperate, Recycle, Reuse: Adaptive Solutions for the Socialist Architecture of Bucharest”. In Lisa B. W. Drummond and Douglas Young (Eds.), Socialist and Post-Socialist Urbanisms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020; pp. 168-184
“Political Engagement through Civic Transnationalism: Romanian Diasporas and the 2014 Presidential Elections”, in Reading Sociology: Canadian Perspectives, Third Edition. Oxford University Press, 2017
“Reading Cutezatorii and Watching Jackie Chan – Romanian Children and the Communist Propaganda (1970s and 1980s). Medialni Studia (Media Studies), Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University Prague, II 2013, Pp. 212-228. Available online at: http://medialnistudia.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/6_laura-visan.pdf
“(Dis)Connected: Romanian Canadians in Cyberspace”. Romanian Journal of Communication, Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations. Pp. 113-127. Vol. 15 No. 1 (29). April 2013. ISSN 1454-8100.
Available online at: http://journalofcommunication.ro/29/visan_29.pdf
“Creating Social Capital Resources: A Case Study of Romanian Immigrants in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area”. Working Papers series no. 93 / 2012, CERIS, the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement; available online at: http://www.ceris.metropolis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/WP93_Visan.pdf
Romanian Immigrants Go to Church” – Illumine – The Journal of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, 2012; vol 11, no. 1. Available online at: http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/Illumine/issue/view/763/showToc
“Partially Color– Rethinking Exterior and Interior Spaces in Communist Romania” – Anthropology of Eastern Europe Review, Vol. 29, No 2 / Fall 2011, 51-66; available online at: http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/aeer/
“Houses that Cry: Online Civic Participation in Post-Communist Romania” – McMaster Journal of Communication, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2011; available online at: http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/mjc/vol7/iss1/3/