Theodor Paleologu

Theodor Paleologu (Romanian pronunciation: [teˈodor ˌpale.oˈloɡu]; born July 15, 1973) is a Romanian historian, diplomat and politician. An independent who was formerly a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL), the People's Movement Party (PMP) and the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L), he was a member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Bucharest from 2008 to 2016. Additionally, in the first two Emil Boc cabinets, from December 2008 to December 2009 he was Minister of Culture, Religious Affairs and Cultural Heritage.

The son of Olimpia and Alexandru Paleologu, he was born in Bucharest and completed secondary studies at the city's German High School. He then attended University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne from 1992 to 1998, where he obtained undergraduate and master's degrees in Philosophy. He also attended the École Normale Supérieure from 1996 to 2001, and from 1998 to 2001, worked on a doctorate in political sciences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He was a lecturer at Boston College from 1999 to 2000, a visiting professor at Deep Springs College in 2003, and a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame (2001–2002), New York University (2002), Harvard University (2002–2003) and the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (2005). He was an external lecturer at the University of Copenhagen in 2007 and 2008, and since 2003 has been assistant professor and director of the summer university at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin. Between 2005 and 2008, he served as Romania's ambassador to Denmark and Iceland; he resigned from the office in order to pursue his successful parliamentary campaign.