CFP: Austrian Holocaust Culture (Austrian Studies, journal, fwd)

[Geoffrey Chew]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vilain R <R.Vilain at rhul.ac.uk>

CALL FOR PAPERS

AUSTRIAN STUDIES, New Series, Volume 1
"Hitler's First Victim?" Holocaust Writing and Public Memory in Austria

Austrian Studies has been relaunched by the MHRA under the new editorship
of Judith Beniston and Robert Vilain, who take over from distinguished
predecessors Ritchie Robertson and Edward Timms. "Austrian Studies" will
appear both in printed and in electronic form from 2003.

A Call for Papers for the first volume has been prepared. It is attached
below, and can also be found at the following website:
        http://www1.rhbnc.ac.uk/German/ASVolume1.html

A brief description of "Austrian Studies" can be found at
        http://www1.rhbnc.ac.uk/German/AustrianStudies.html
and this site will be updated gradually to give more information about the
journal, its advisory board and the preferred format for submissions.

Please contact either of the editors with any suggestions.

Dr Robert Vilain <r.vilain at rhul.ac.uk>
Dr Judith Beniston <j.beniston at ucl.ac.uk>

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Austrian Studies, New Series, Volume 1
CALL FOR PAPERS

"Hitler's first Victim"?
Holocaust Writing and Public Memory in Austria

By inviting Austrians to view themselves as the first victims of Nazi
aggression, the Moscow Declaration (1943) helped to foster and legitimize
a widespread public amnesia concerning the country's recent past. Only in
the aftermath of the Waldheim affair in 1986 did the issue of Austria's
participation in war and genocide come to the forefront of public
attention. Notwithstanding this, Holocaust memory has played an important
role in the self-understanding of many Austrian writers in the post-war
era and has often been a major factor in their relationship with the
restored Republic.

The aims of this volume are, first, to explore the richness and variety of
Austrian Holocaust writing - defining as 'Austrian' any German-speaking
writer born in Austria or in the territories of the former Habsburg Empire
- and, second, to consider the uniquely constituted cultural traditions
and discourses of public memory with which that writing has frequently
been in debate.

This is conceived as an interdisciplinary volume, investigating not only
literary responses but also theoretical and political debates that have
been generated by the issue of Holocaust memory in Austria. We would
therefore welcome contributions for publication in English from both
historians and literary scholars. Possible cultural and historical topics
might include the implications for Austria of debates about private and
public memory, Holocaust monuments and commemorations, and the
implications of public policy concerning issues such as reparations and
access to information on the confiscation in 1938 of Jewish property. The
volume will present literary work in a variety of genres, spanning the
whole post-war period, and putting side by side Jewish and non-Jewish
writers. This potentially includes autobiographical narratives, work by
Austrian-Jewish exiles as well as those who chose to return, second- and
third-generation responses, lyric poetry, narrative fiction, drama, film,
opera, together with theoretical and sociological reflections. Alongside
possible tensions and homologies between literary and non-literary
discourses, we would particularly urge contributors to consider the role
that aspects of the Austrian cultural tradition - for example, the
Volksstueck or the tradition of Sprachkritik - have played in the creation
of a distinctive Austrian discourse on the Holocaust.

Brief proposals should be sent to either of the editors by 15 January
2002. The deadline for receipt of completed articles will be 1 September
2002.

Dr Judith Beniston                              Dr Robert Vilain
Department of German                            Department of German
University College London                       Royal Holloway London
Gower Street                                    Egham
London  WC1E 6BT                                Surrey  TW20 0EX
j.beniston at ucl.ac.uk                            r.vilain at rhul.ac.uk

We would welcome proposals for articles on the following areas:

* The significance for Austria / Austrian literature of theoretical
  debates concerning the nature and interaction of private and public
  memory
        - Autobiographical / first-generation narratives

* Reflections on key cultural and political debates: e.g. the Waldheim
  affair, the Mauthausen debate, the Hrdlicka and Whiteread monuments, the
  suppression (until recently) of archives on the confiscation of Jewish
  property
        - Literary responses to the Waldheim affair, etc.
        - Literary representations of Mauthausen, Theresienstadt

* Austria's 'victim status' and its critics
        - The representation of Jews and other victims of Nazi oppression
          in post-war Austrian literature
        - The representation of the perpetrators

* The impact on Holocaust writing of the Austrian cultural tradition and
  of thematic concerns and responses strongly associated with Austria or
  the former Habsburg Empire, e.g. Sprachkritik, the Volksstueck, the
  ghetto story, irony

* Theoretical and sociological reflections: e.g. Canetti, Sperber, Amery,
  Anders

* Feminist approaches to the Holocaust

* The Holocaust as metaphor in Austrian literature

* Representation of the Holocaust by Austrian dramatists / on the Austrian
  / Viennese stage
        - Reception in Austria of works that were controversial
          elsewhere: e.g. Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank, Der Stellvertreter,
          Die Ermittlung
* Austrian-born dramatists, e.g. Kortner, Hochwaelder, Bernhard, Tabori,
  Jelinek

* Austrian poetry: lyric poetry after the Holocaust? e.g. Celan, Bachmann,
  Fried

* Second- and third-generation responses; the place of the Holocaust in
  post-war Austrian-Jewish identity

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