Elise and Helene Richter

This proposal is a continuation of FWF Project P15548, submitted and approved in 2001. The overall project aim is to secure a place in our collective memory for the sisters Helene and Elise Richter an the grounds of their merits in scholarship and society. The project will produce a comprehensive and muliiperspective view of their lives and work in order to draw a complex and differentiated picture of three two important scholars, who were both typical and a-typical of Vienna University and Viemia intellectual life in tempestuous times. The personal life-style of a life-and-work-partnership chosen by the Richters deserves particular attention from the point of view of gender studies. The overall project was designed to run for five years. The focus of activity in the ferst year (2002/03) has been an processing the letters in the estate of the Richters in the Vienna Stadt- und Landesbibliothek. The present proposal is for the fundeng of the remaining three years. The next project stage will focus an further aspects of the estate of the Richters: their notebooks (Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek) and their correspondence (Östereichische Nationalbibliothek) (2004-2005). Based an the processing of the source material, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers will investigate different facets in the lives und works of Elise and Helene Richter. The results of this work will be published in a thematic volume and it is planned for this volume to have reached the stage of a publishable manuscript by the end of 2006. In terms of content, this volume will focus an a critical re-reading and re- evaluation of the scientifie output of the two sisters, including works which have hitherto escaped attention of the scholarly community. The lest of topics proposed so far orients itself towards the published work of Elise and Helene Richter as well as towards the focal points of the "Summe des Lebens". The study of source materials carried out so far has shown that the "summa" is in fact a condensed version of the diaries and correspondence but a definite list of topics can be established only once work an the source materials has been completed. It can be said, however, that the primary research questions all concern historical, cultural and socio-political aspects (history of institutions and academic disciplines). Additionally it is planned to present results from the source materials (correspondence, diaries). This will be in the shape of an "Elise and Helene Richter Compendium" with relevant samples und extracts from diaries, letters, documents, press-articles accompanied by appropriate editorial comments.(2006)