------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: Vilain R <[log in to unmask]>
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 <[log in to unmask]>
Dr Judith Beniston <[log in to unmask]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
[log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
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
