Austrian literature and culture between WW 1 and WW 2

Though numerous aspects of Austrian literature and culture of the period between World Wars I and II (up to 1934) seem to be sufficiently explored and individual authors like Broch, Kraus, Musil, Roth, Schnitzler or St. Zweig are holding prominent positions in the literary canon, the outline of this period as a whole, nevertheless, has remained blurred in comparison to the >Literature of the Republic of Weimar<. The rediscovery of forgotten authors or minor writers like Neumann, Perutz, Müller or Hartwig, and the re-editions of their works have not really changed this situation. In particular, the intense relations between the cultural centres Berlin, Vienna, and Prague, the reception of the European avant-garde and cultural debates, furthermore the integration of new media and transliterary artistic forms (jazz-music, concert programms for the working class, painting, film industry and filmscript-writing etc.) have not yet been fully appreciated in representative studies and documentations. Fin de Siècle- Modernism and the so called Habsburg Myth still dominate academic research. The main goal of this project is focussed on reconsidering the role of authors and texts within the theoretical framework of Cultural Studies, which means giving more attention to the historical and social context of literature and placing it in a dialogical confrontation with other important cultural phenomena in the discourse of their time. The first and foremost task of the project will be a documentation of aesthetic, literary and other culturally relevant manifestos. Individual topics will then be explored separately in workshops, international conferences and subsequent publications. A systematic research in the field of the dynamic relations between phenomena of mass culture, literary elites, traditional and experimental forms and techniques of text production and artistic stagings in new media is of primary importance. Furthermore, attention will be focussed on a critical revision of the literary canon and editions, on transliterary relations between Vienna and other cultural centres like Prague and Berlin and finally on aspects of Jewish-Jiddish literature as discussed in Vienna (between Beer-Hoffmann and Schnitzler,) in specific jiddish publications like newspapers or editions (f. i. short novels of A.M. Fuchs).

Though numerous aspects of Austrian literature and culture of the period between World Wars I and II (up to 1934) seem to be sufficiently explored and individual authors like Broch, Kraus, Musil, Roth, Schnitzler or St. Zweig are holding prominent positions in the literary canon, the outline of this period as a whole, nevertheless, has remained blurred in comparison to the >Literature of the Republic of Weimar<. The rediscovery of forgotten authors or minor writers like Neumann, Perutz, Müller or Hartwig, and the re-editions of their works have not really changed this situation. In particular, the intense relations between the cultural centres Berlin, Vienna, and Prague, the reception of the European avant-garde and cultural debates, furthermore the integration of new media and transliterary artistic forms (jazz-music, concert programms for the working class, painting, film industry and filmscript-writing etc.) have not yet been fully appreciated in representative studies and documentations. Fin de Siècle- Modernism and the so called Habsburg Myth still dominate academic research. The main goal of this project is focussed on reconsidering the role of authors and texts within the theoretical framework of Cultural Studies, which means giving more attention to the historical and social context of literature and placing it in a dialogical confrontation with other important cultural phenomena in the discourse of their time. The first and foremost task of the project will be a documentation of aesthetic, literary and other culturally relevant manifestos. Individual topics will then be explored separately in workshops, international conferences and subsequent publications. A systematic research in the field of the dynamic relations between phenomena of mass culture, literary elites, traditional and experimental forms and techniques of text production and artistic stagings in new media is of primary importance. Furthermore, attention will be focussed on a critical revision of the literary canon and editions, on transliterary relations between Vienna and other cultural centres like Prague and Berlin and finally on aspects of Jewish-Jiddish literature as discussed in Vienna (between Beer-Hoffmann and Schnitzler,) in specific jiddish publications like newspapers or editions (f. i. short novels of A.M. Fuchs).