Maria Bucur (born 2 September 1968 in Bucharest, Romania) is an American-Romanian historian of modern Eastern Europe and gender in the twentieth century.
and spending a year at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London (1989–90), she obtained graduate degrees (MA and PhD) in history from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1996).
Her first monograph, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania (2002), examined the intellectual debates and policy-making activities of a group of doctors, lawyers, biologists, anthropologists, and politicians who used eugenicist ideas to propel Romanian society and institutions to a level of modernization in social engineering akin to attempts made in Germany and other West European states during the same period.
"[16] With the political philosopher Mihaela Miroiu, Bucur published Birth of Democratic Citizenship: Women in Modern Romania in November 2018 with Indiana University Press.
In addition to these monographs and other co-edited volumes, she has published over seventy articles and chapters in a variety of outlets, including The American Historical Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Project Syndicate and Public Seminar.
A passionate promoter of culture and history from her native country, Bucur has helped organize eleven conferences on Romanian Studies (2007–2017) at Indiana University.
[18] Together with her colleague Christina Zarifopol-Illias, she worked to establish the first Romanian Studies graduate fellowship in the United States at Indiana University.