Vienna's dreams of Europe : culture and identity beyond the nation-state / Katherine Arens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arens, Katherine, 1953- author.

Series:

New directions in German studies ; v. 13.

New directions in German studies ; vol. 13

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity.

History.

Austrian literature.

Vienna (Austria)--Intellectual life--19th century.

Vienna (Austria).

Vienna (Austria)--Intellectual life--20th century.

Austrian literature--Austria--Vienna--History and criticism.

Austria--Civilization.

Austria.

Civilization.

Austria--In literature.

Group identity in literature.

Group identity--Austria--History.

National characteristics, Austrian.

National characteristics, European.

Intellectual life.

Literature.

Austria--Vienna.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 328 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Academic an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2015.

Summary:

"Vienna's Dreams of Europe argues for a convincing counter-narrative to the prevailing story of Austria's place in Europe since the Enlightenment. For a millennium, Austrian writers have used images of Europe and its hegemonic culture as their political and cultural reference points. Yet in discussions of Europe's nation-states, Austria appears only as an afterthought, no matter that its precursor states-the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, and Austria Hungary-represent a globalized European cultural space outside the dominant paradigm of nationalist colonialism. Austrian writers today confront reunited Europe in full acknowledgment of Austro-Hungary's multicultural heritage, a culture mixing various nationalities, ethnicities and cultural forms, including ancestors from the Balkans and beyond. To challenge standard accounts of 18th- through 20th-century European imperial identity construction, Vienna's Dreams of Europe introduces a group of Austrian public intellectuals and authors who have since the 18th century construed their own publics as European. Katherine Arens posits a political identity resisting two hundred years of European nationalism, and working in different terms than today's theorist-critics of the hegemonic West"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Austria as a Challenge to Europe

1. Letters to the Ruling Class: The Public Spaces of Enlightenment

2. Extending Europe's Enlightenment: Why Grillparzer Resists Weimar

3. Revolution from the Prompter's Box: Rewriting Public Dreams of Political Morality

4. Eclipses, Floods, and Biedermeier Catastrophes: Public Spaces in extremis

5. Hofmannsthal's European Revolution: Recapturing a Space for Common Culture

6. Schnitzer and the Space of Public Discourse: The Politics of Decadence in fin de siècle Vienna

7. Kasperl and the Wiener Gruppe: artmann, Bayer and Handke

8. A New Balkan Challenge: The Reemergence of Austria's Europe

Afterword: Austria as Europe?: The Art and Science of the Post-National Culture.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781441142498

1441142495

9781441170217

1441170219

OCLC:

757481133

Online:

Cover image