What Does It Mean to Be Progressive Today? – Senator Victoria Stoiciu in Dialogue with Claudiu Turcuș (RO)

✅ EVENT: https://fb.me/e/6EexH6hIa

📍 Agora, courtyard of the Faculty of Theatre and Film (2 Burebista St.). In case of bad weather: Room 18.

What does it mean today to be progressive in a public sphere marked by political polarisation, social anxieties, multiple economic crises, and increasingly aggressive ideological competition?

The dialogue between Claudiu Turcuș and Victoria Stoiciu proposes a reflection on progressivism as a form of action constructed at the intersection of academia, activism, and public representation.

What role do intellectuals, researchers, and artists still play within contemporary networks of public communication? How can the arts generate social sensitivity, political imagination, and solidarity around issues that are often marginalised?

Drawing from Victoria Stoiciu’s professional experience, the dialogue also touches upon the personal dimension of political involvement. What does it mean for a woman to actively enter politics in Romania? What are the costs, limitations, forms of resistance, and real possibilities for intervention within a political field still dominated by conservative reflexes, harsh competition, and suspicion toward inclusive agendas?

Part of the conversation will focus on projects that concretely illustrate the difficulty of sustaining a progressive agenda, such as policies concerning the minimum consumer basket or the recognition and combating of femicide. These will be discussed not merely as legislative issues, but as examples of a broader struggle to make visible social problems that are ignored, minimised, or treated punitively.

The event invites the public to rethink progressivism beyond the polemical stereotypes of the present moment: as an alliance between critical knowledge, artistic expression, civic action, and political courage. Victoria Stoiciu is an independent senator and co-initiator of the anti-femicide law. Before entering politics, she was active in civil society and the press, where she became known as a left-wing and progressive voice advocating for social rights and inclusion.