 Cesereanu dedicated part of her work to researching the impact of communist-organized state persecution, and to the historical investigation of political imprisonments during the 1950s and 60s, as set in place by the communist secret police, the Securitate.Dan C. Mihăilescu, who referred to Cesereanu as one in a "Cluj-Napocan, Transylvanian 'trident' " of essayists, alongside Marta Petreu and Ştefan Borbély, indicated she was "one of the most industrious literary historians, analysts of mentalities, of the ethno-psychologies etc.