Elise Richter and Helene Richter

It is the aim of this project to re-discover and do justice to the lives and work of Helene and Elise Richter, prominent Austrian academics and important personalities in Vienna`s intellectual and cultural life of the 1920s and 1930s. Elise Richter was a linguist, Helene Richter a theatre critic, Anglicist and active feminist, both sisters were murdered at Theresienstadt. This research project is designed to honour their memories and to secure them a place in the collective memory of the present. For the first time an interdisciplinary team of specialists will seek to summarise their lives and work, a research design which is particularly appropriate in view of the fact that the sisters did not only live together but also worked in areas which are inextricably interwoven. Their personal and professional lifestyles will be approached from the point of view of gender studies. Another strand of the project, grounded in a cultural studies framework, will delineate the history of the academic disciplines in which the two women were involved (Romance and English philology, theatre studies), as well as aspects of political, cultural and gender history of the time in order to draw a differentiated picture of these important academics and intellectuals, who were simultaneously typical and a-typical of the University of Vienna and Viennese intellectual life in general during their life-time. Improved access to source materials promises new insights but the complexity of the topic requires a whole array of methodological approaches. These various perspectives will be bundled and focused through the inter- and trans-disciplinary design of the project as a whole. Among the approaches and research methods represented in the overall project are the following: historical-critical study of sources, philological text analysis and textual criticism, socio-historical cultural-historical comparative methods as well as literary and linguistic instruments from the domains of Romance, English and German philology. The project is planned to run for five years. The first phase will commence while this research proposal is being considered, and will be dedicated to the gathering of source materials (letters, diaries, newspaper articles...) their systematisation and classification, thematic analysis and transfer to digital media. The processed materials will then be made available to the various contributors. Phase one will last two years. Processing all of the source materials in this concentrated fashion is not only cost-effective but provides a solid basis for cross-disciplinary co-operation. Phase two consists of several sub-projects outlined as above. Several renowned scholars from Austria and abroad have already agreed to participate. The results of these various sub-projects will then be published in a thematic volume. This second phase is also planned to last for two years. The third and final phase (one year) will be devoted to the production of a critical edition of selected letters, passages from the diaries and difficult-to-access but currently relevant articles, essays and journalistic texts authored by Elise and Helene Richter.