My scholarly work has centered on the constructions of ethnicities, gender, and identities in post-World War II and contemporary Austrian literature, memoirs, and films and the image of Austria in Hollywood films. This has translated into the publication of three academic books as well as many articles, book chapters, and presentations.
Austria Made in Hollywood focuses on films set in an identifiable Austria, examining them through the lenses of the historical contexts on both sides of the Atlantic and the prism of the ever-changing domestic film industry. The study chronicles the protean screen images of Austria and Austrians that set them apart both from European projections of Austria and from Hollywood incarnations of other European nations and nationals. It explores explicit and implicit cultural commentaries on domestic and foreign issues inserted in the Austrian stories while considering the many, sometimes conflicting forces that have shaped the films.
In Reclaiming Heimat, I use the autobiographical accounts by seven Austrian reéimigrés to construct a useful framework to explore issues of individual and collective identity and cultural memory in the post-World War II Austrian context. By examining the textual manifestations of the traumas of exile and return and the process of mourning the loss of homeland on rhetorical, thematic, and metaphorical levels, I reveal the difficulty in reconnecting to the Austrian "we" as a Jewish Austrian in postwar and post-Holocaust Austria.
Based on my dissertation (1986, University of Texas at Austin), Against the Horizion is the one of the first English-language books to deal in depth with Austrian women writers of the postwar and contemporary period. It is a comparative study of the works of Marlen Haushofer, Ingeborg Bachmann, Barbara Frischmuth, Elfriede Jelinek, and Brigitte Schwaiger. The works are examined in light of the authors' criticism of women's position in Austrian society, the writers' relationship to feminism, and the influence of the change in women's status on their literature. In the introduction I provide a broad historical overview and discusses some of the factors influencing the development of women's literature in Austria from 1918 to the present.
Two articles available on line are "Austrian and Dustbowl Refugess United in Three Faces West (1940)" and „Bitte vergeßt nicht, alle Briefe gut aufzuheben“ Shared Agency in einem Briefwechsel österreichisch-jüdischer Schüler in der Emigration . The latter is an article related to my current research project, an edition of letters by a group of classmates expelled from their school in Vienna in April 1938, is available on line.
Related to my work on the memoirs, I wrote the Afterword to Return to Vienna, a translation of of Hilde Spiel's Rückkehr nach Wien.
In addition to original research I have translated two novels by Gerhard Roth, The Calm Ocean and and a short play (President Evening Breeze) by Elfriede Jelinek with Helga Schreckenberger. The latter is in the collection in Modern Austrian Folk Plays, edited by George Laws (Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 1996).
Geoffrey C. Howes and I co-edited Modern Austrian Literature (the journal of the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association [now Austrian Studies Association]) from 2000-2005. Geoff designed the cover used during our tenure as editors.
We introduced our first volume with the following editorial statement:
Die Gegenwart ist immer wie das letzte Haus einer Stadt, das irgendwie nicht mehr ganz zu den Stadthäusern gehört. Jede Generation fragt erstaunt, wer bin ich und was waren meine Vorgänger? Sie sollte lieber fragen, wo bin ich, und voraussetzen, daβ ihre Vorgänger nicht anderswie, sondern bloβ anderswo waren . . .
-Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
Most of us associate Modern Austrian Literature with Donald Daviau and Jorun Johns and for good reason. Donald Daviau (University of California-Riverside) served as editor of the journal from 1971 to 1999 and Jorun Johns (California State San Bernadino) served as Secretary-Treasurer from 1974 to 1998. And as Don pointed out in his retrospective on the twenty-fifth anniver-sary of the organization in 1987, he had been with the journal since its inception in 1961, when it appeared under its first name Journal of the International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association.
The journal began as a modest mimeographed newsletter for the newly formed International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association. Robert O. Weiss, the organization's first president, declared that the professional group saw the need for an organized effort "to lift the treasure of Schnitzler's work to obtain for it its rightful place among the great cultural accomplishments of modern times" (4). A dedicated group of 61 "active" and 32 "associate" members from the United States, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, Israel, France, Australia, and Brazil set out to reexamine the works of Arthur Schnitzler, making his literature and papers more accessible through a microfilm archive housed at the University of Kentucky. Among the first members were the luminaries Ernst Lothar, Friedrich Torberg, and Hans Weigel.
In the seven years of its existence the Journal of the Arthur Schnitzler Research Association had three editors: George Schoolfield served as editor from 1961-1962; Eugene Grotegut from 1962-1964; and Vincent LoCicero took over the reins in 1964. Originally, the journal's board solicited articles not only on Schnitzler, but also about the turn of the century, which would lead to a better understanding of the time during which Schnitzler's works appeared. Then in 1968 the first major change occurred, marked by a new title: Modern Austrian Literature. At that time the journal went from a mimeographed "newsletter" to a more formal, printed journal. The name change was described as "a heart-trans-plant operation" by Vincent LoCicero, the editor at the time. He explained: "The body of this publication is new, but its spirit and essence remains that of the Journal of the International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association" (55). "Modern" was to be interpreted freely. Articles previously not accepted because they did not fall within the more limited editorial scope of the Journal were now welcomed.
The next change came in 1971 when Donald Daviau assumed the editorship after Professor LoCicero had to resign because of illness. On his watch Don began combining the third and fourth numbers into a special topics issue, and he changed the design. In time he also initiated and organized the yearly Riverside conference, and he and Jorun Johns, along with Richard Lawson, founded Ariadne Press. For his innumerable contributions to the study of Austrian literature Donald Daviau was awarded the Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst.
The next significant change came in 1974 when Donald Daviau asked Jorun Johns to serve as Secretary-Treasurer, a crucial job that she skillfully carried out for twenty-four years. She also worked as a member of the editorial staff. In the special twenty-fifth anniversary issue of Modern Austrian Literature in 1986, Don summarized her service: "Her astute management of the journal's finances and the many unheralded tasks she performs have contributed in a major way to the journal's continued development and success." These words hold true for her years of devoted service.
Both Donald Daviau and Jorun Johns dedicated countless hours to the promotion of Austrian literature and culture through the journal, the yearly con-ference, the sessions at the AATG and MLA, and, along with Richard Lawson, their work with Ariadne Press. These efforts have played an essential role in the growth of the study of Austrian literature and film in the United States. As a token of our appreciation and a small gesture of recognition, we have chosen to award Donald Daviau and Jorun Johns life memberships in the association.
As the journal enters the twenty-first century, there are good reasons to re-examine each of the terms in its title. In a postmodern age there is little consensus about precisely what "modern" and "literature" mean. At a time when Europe is being redefined, the term "Austrian," already complicated by past shifts in politics and geography, continues to defy neat definition. We do not presume to give definitive solutions, but for the purposes of the journal we want to delimit "modern," "Austrian," and "literature" as follows.
As applied to Austrian culture, "modern" can be understood as beginning with the Enlightenment. Although the beginnings of a self-consciously Austrian cultural identity are often associated with Grillparzer and his times, the conditions for such an identity were set during the reign of Joseph II, with its modern-izing reforms (see R. J. W. Evans, "Josephinismus, 'Austrianness,' and the Revolution of 1848" in The Austrian Enlightenment and its Aftermath, 1991). In making this periodization, we have no desire to be dogmatic; rather, we wish to open up the journal to contributions that reexamine conventional assumptions about the origins of modern Austrian culture.
In this context, "Austrian literature" refers in a broad sense to cultural ex-pressions produced within the Austrian empire in its various incarnations, Austria under the Corporate State and National Socialism, and the First and Second Republics. Furthermore, it includes the creative works of Austrians who, for whatever reasons, left Austria, and for whom Austria is a point of orientation. This expansive view is not meant to aggrandize Austria, but to use "Austrian" as a heuristic term for exploring critically the cultural origins of creative expres-sions. We are also interested in Austria as it is imagined by Austrians and others, as a cultural construct.
Since 1982, the phrase "literature and culture" has been part of the subtitle of Modern Austrian Literature. In this spirit, we will welcome articles not only on the established and growing canon of literary texts, but also on film, popular culture, and texts that challenge definitions of high and low culture, genres, and methodologies. Submissions that deal with creative texts from a variety of historical or theoretical perspectives are particularly encouraged, as is collaborative work among literary scholars, between literary scholars and scholars in other disciplines, and between scholars in the United States and abroad.
In this first issue under our editorship we are pleased to offer a selection of articles on topics ranging from nineteenth-century Realist aesthetics, to the turn of the century, to Trakl's reception, to postwar documentary drama. The current literary scene is represented in an interview with Lilian Faschinger.
One of our goals is to ensure that Modern Austrian Literature serves as a forum for dialogue and exchange of professional information for scholars who study Austrian literature and culture. In our next issue, we will start a section called "Notes" for shorter contributions focusing on questions of general interest that do not require extensive treatment. Furthermore, we encourage readers to respond to the articles that appear in MAL by writing to us and the contributors, using e-mail if desired. We hope to publish substantial exchanges in another new section called "Forum."
We also plan to institute a regular section entitled "News and Information," which will include calls for papers, conference announcements and reports, information on literary life in Austria, and important information on Association activities and research opportunities. For the sake of timeliness, much of this information will be published immediately on our website:.
John Pustejovsky and I edited "Wenn sie das Wort Ich gebraucht": Festschrift für Barbara Becker-Cantarino von FreundInnen, SchülerInnen und KollegInnen (Chloe - Beihefte Zum Daphnis) This volume of original essays celebrates Barbara Becker-Cantarino, whose prolific publications on German literary culture from 1600 to the twentieth century are major milestones in the field of German cultural studies. The range of topics in the collection reflects the breadth of Becker-Cantarino's scholarship. Examining literature from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the contributors explore the intersections of gender, race, and genre, history and gender, and gender and violence. They provide fresh readings of the works of known and lesser-known writers, including Cyriacus Spangenberg, Maria Anna Sagers, Luise Gottsched, Heinrich von Kleist, Frank Wedekind, Christa Wolf, Helga Schütz, Terézia Mora, and Martina Hefter. Their discussions explore the possibilities and limitations of theoretical discourses on travel literature, deconstruction, and gender and suggest new avenues of investigation.
Austrian Children and Youth Fleeing Nazi Austria
Vol. 4. 2020
