Marius Benta

PhD candidate
University College Cork, Ireland
Sociology Department
Supervisor: Prof. Árpád Szakolczai

Welcome to my place.



I am a sociologist, journalist, programmer, designer, and writer from the city of Cluj, Transylvania ( Romania).

I work now as a News Editor with the Cluj studio of Radio Guerrilla, and run SevenTimes.ro - a Transylvania News in English website that I founded in January 2007. I also teach, as a guest lecturer, radio journalism at Babes-Bolay University.

I am the author of Agna, a software for Social Network Analysis. Because it's platform-independent, user-friendly, and free, Agna is being used by numerous sociologists and psychologists around the world. To find out more about this software, visit Agna Homepage or the Download site .

I spent three years in Ireland at UCC as a PhD student in Sociology. Now I am in the process of writing my thesis. I have the chance to have Professor Árpád Szakolczai as supervisor of my project. My research is anchored in interpretive sociology--chiefly Alfred Schutz's phenomenology--and the title of my thesis is Topology, Chronology, and Typology: Managing Mundane Resources in Everyday Life. It focuses on the concepts of identity, social space, and social temporality as structural dimensions of the life-world. The list of my publications is available here.

At UCC, I also had the great opportunity to give tutorials in Social Theory to undergraduate students. A set of resources (mostly on-line texts) I've collected for them can be found here.

For several years, I have also worked in the graphic design industry. I enjoyed it and I still do logo and web design as a freelancer. Have a look at my online portfolio.

I have a photo gallery On flickr.com: watch it here. I started shooting in September 2006 when I bought my Nikon Coolpix S4. In the following months I bought two other cameras, as I've discovered the pleasure of messing up with classical, film-based photography.

I also have a passion for literature. I'll be posting on my Writing page links to stories I've written recently in English and some older texts in Romanian. Check out my latest story in the Spring 2007 edition of Fly in the Head magazine.

Here is some CV-like information about me:

RESEARCH INTERESTS

interpretive sociology, social space & cyberspace, identity & the self, media & new media, phenomenology
communication networks, social psychology, statistical methods, mathematical models

PAPERS & BOOK CHAPTERS

2005: Studying communication networks with Agna 2.1, in: “Cognitie, Creier, Comportament / Cognition, Brain, Behavior” (Ed. by Romanian Association of Cognitive Sciences), September 2005, Vol. 9 No. 3, Cluj, pp. 567-574
2004: Identity, from hospital to kitchen, in: Copoeru, I. & Szabo, N. (Editors): "Beyond Identity: Transformations of identity in a (post) modern world", House of the Book of Science, Cluj, pp. 43-52
2004 Book review: José Lopez, Society and its Metaphors: Language, Social Theory and Social Structure, in: Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol 13.1
2002: Dolly in the wonderland of the identity constructionism. Or: The ontological structure of space and being in the "natural attitude", in: Copoeru, I. & Mihali, C. (Editors): "Cartografii ale modernitatii", House of the Book of Science, Cluj, pp. 152-159
1999: Ontogenetic aspects of the constitution of personal space, in: "Parallaxis", 3/1999, Ed. by the Faculty of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University; joint author: Alina Rusu (in Romanian)
1999: Social spaces, virtual spaces, in: "Vatra" No.2, Targu Mures (in Romanian)
1998: The anthropology of everyday life and its phenomenological grounds, in: "Caietele Tranzitiei" No 2, Ed. by the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj (in Romanian)

PRESENTATIONS

2002: The place of selfness and otherness in life-world's ontological structure, paper presented at Irish Philosophical Society's Postgraduate Colloquium, 19-20 April, Galway
2000: Behavior as discourse: A structural analysis of feeding behavior of laboratory rats, Measuring Behavior Conference, Poster session, Nijmegen, August; joint author: Alina Rusu
1999: Spatial representations by animals, presentation at the National Meeting of the Students Scientific Circles, Cluj, 22-24 April; joint author: Alina Rusu (in Romanian)

STUDIES

At present: PhD candidate, Sociology Department, University College Cork, Ireland
1993-1997: Graduate studies in Sociology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
1994-1997: Diploma in Education, Pedagogy Department, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj
1985-1989: High-School of Mathematics and Physics "Tiberiu Popovici," Cluj

TRAINING

October 2001: Tutoring in Sociology, workshop at University College Cork; Lecturer: Bridget McAdam-O’Connell
July 1997: Advertising Seminar organized by Open Society Foundation in Cluj, Romania; Lecturer: Brian Cookman, UK
1995: Mathematical Methods Applied in Sociology, a ten-day workshop organized by Open Society Foundation in Bucharest, Romania
1994: Public Speaking and Negotiation Skills, a three-day seminar at Transylvania Business Centre, Cluj
1994: Galician Language and Culture, summer course at University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
1991-1994: Course in Portuguese language, Babes-Bolyai University; Lecturer: Prof. Marian Papahagi †
1992-1994: Course in Ancient Hebrew, Dr. Moshe Carmilly Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History, Cluj

RADIO EXPERIENCE

from September 2006: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Guerrilla Cluj
2006 (May-August): News Reporter, BBC Romania
2006 (February-April): Chief Producer, Radio 21 Cluj, News Department
2001: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Cluj
1999-2001: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Pro FM Cluj
1998-1999: Producer & Presenter, Radio Sonic Cluj, News Department

CONTACT ME

by e-mail: imbenta@yahoo.co.uk
by telephone: +40721845458
by mail: Marius Benta, Bucium 17-19/21, RO-400561 Cluj
by Y! Messenger: imbenta
in Second Life: Zaoshang Seelowe