Journal of Austrian Studies最新文献

{"title":"Geschlecht und Autorschaft Stefan Zweigs \"Künstlernovelle\" Brief einer Unbekannten","authors":"Martina Wörgötter","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929389","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p><i>Brief einer Unbekannten</i>, one of Stefan Zweig’s best-known novellas, is the story of a famous writer who receives a letter from an “unknown” woman who tells him of her unrequited love for him. The reason for the letter is the death of their child. The novella is often cited as an example of Zweig’s psychologically sensitive portrayal of his characters. The aim of this article is to read the novella as a reflection on Zweig’s artistry and authorship, with the category of gender playing a decisive role: The unknown woman herself appears as a writing woman next to the male writer. In light of contemporary gender discourses that shape the constellation of characters and genders in the novella, Brief einer Unbekannten can be read as an expression of Stefan Zweig’s examination of his own authorship. The question of female and male writing thus becomes a question of distinction. This concerns, in no small part, Stefan Zweig’s personal life and that of his wife Friderike, who not only promoted her husband’s career but was also herself a writer.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land by Jacob Mikanowski (review)","authors":"Joseph W. Moser","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929399","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land&lt;/em&gt; by Jacob Mikanowski &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Joseph W. Moser &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Jacob Mikanowski, &lt;em&gt;Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land&lt;/em&gt;. New York: Pantheon Books, 2023. 376 pp. &lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Goodbye, Eastern Europe&lt;/em&gt;, Jacob Mikanowski tries to historically define the part of Europe that was behind the Iron Curtain. Then it was readily labeled “Eastern Europe,” but today it is often subsumed under the umbrella term of “Central Europe,” and many of the countries in the area have joined the EU and even NATO, in large part to distance themselves from Russia. This makes it more difficult to define what Eastern Europe represents today and where exactly it is located. In this fascinating study, the author links countries from the Baltic States, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslav states, drawing connections that are fascinating and likely new to many readers.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Mikanowski starts his history of Eastern Europe with the Christianization of the various countries, a process that generally came later than in Western Europe. There are very few documentary testimonies of life in Eastern Europe prior to Christianization. In general, Eastern Europe was less centrally ruled than the countries to the West. In the eighteenth century, it became the area between empires (the receding Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian Empires). In this regard the book is also of great interest to Austrian Studies scholars studying the former lands of the Habsburg Empire. &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 147]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The book is loosely organized in three parts. Part I, on “Faiths,” is subdivided among the topics of Pagans and Christians, Jews, Muslims, and heretics. This part addresses the late Christianization of Eastern Europe as well as the fact that Ashkenazic Judaism found a home without a country there. The Ottoman Empire also brought Islam to Eastern Europe. Part II, on “Empires and Peoples,” covers the topics of empires, peoples, wanderers, and nations; here the author discusses the many peripatetic peoples and the late emergence of national identities in a region that is too diverse to be subsumed into any one nation-state. Part III, on “The Twentieth Century,” includes subheadings on moderns, prophets, war, Stalinism, and “thaw.” While this part covers the more commonly taught ideas about Eastern Europe, the author manages to show how the various Soviet satellite states diverged from one another and from Soviet directives.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The challenge in writing this book certainly came from the fact that it would be easy to focus too much on any specific country in the region, yet Mikanowski manages to link Poland with Hungary, draw connections to the former Yugoslav states and Romania, a","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Paul Celan—\"sah daß ein Blatt fiel und wußte, daß es eine Botschaft war\": Neue Einsichten und Lektüren Hrsg. Martin A. Hainz (review)","authors":"Elke Nicolai","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929396","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Paul Celan—“sah daß ein Blatt fiel und wußte, daß es eine Botschaft war”: Neue Einsichten und Lektüren&lt;/em&gt; Hrsg. Martin A. Hainz &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Elke Nicolai &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Martin A. Hainz, Hrsg., &lt;em&gt;Paul Celan—“sah daß ein Blatt fiel und wußte, daß es eine Botschaft war”: Neue Einsichten und Lektüren&lt;/em&gt;. Berlin: Frank &amp; Timme, 2022. 194 S. &lt;p&gt;Pünktlich zum 100. Geburtstag und 50. Todestages von Paul Celan veranstaltete die Private Pädagogische Hochschule Burgenland (PPH Burgenland) im Jahr 2020 eine internationale Konferenz, auf der sich die Forscher*innen Leonard M. Olschner, Andrei Corbea-Hoisie, Barbara Wiedemann, Vivian Liska, Martin A. Hainz, Leslie Morris, und Artur R. Boelderl aus ihrem je eigenen Blickwinkel der Figur Paul Celans zuwandten, um neue Einsichten in Person und Werk zu vermitteln. Die Prämisse Celans, Denken als fortschreitenden Prozess, der Gedachtes wie bisher nicht Gedachtes umfasst und für Offenheit plädiert, gilt für seine Texte, so Hainz im Vorwort, und ist auch Leitfaden der Konferenz. Das Politische, auf die Zukunft Verweisende in seiner Lyrik freizulegen ist Anspruch aller Beitragenden.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Olschners einleitender Aufsatz wirbt für fünf Zugänge zu einem ersten Verständnis der Lyrik Celans, die er Interventionen nennt. Dazu gehören Sachwissen und genaues Quellenstudium, für das Olschner die Diskussion um den Begriff “Harnischstriemen” (geologischer Begriff) heranzieht, den Gadamer auf einer Tagung in Heidelberg als Neologismus bezeichnet hat. Die zweite Intervention beinhaltet das eingewobene Zitat und wird verdeutlicht an der Redewendung “Was auf der Lunge, das auf der Zunge”, die Celan &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 140]&lt;/strong&gt; in seinen Notizen zur Büchner-Preis-Rede “Der Meridian” seiner Mutter zuschreibt, diesen Hinweis aber in der aktuellen Rede weglässt, weil—so Olscher—es Celan auf den “Atem als Ursprung der Poesie” ankommt. Der Biographie wird weniger Einfluss zugestanden, dem Entwurf als vierter Intervention des (noch) nicht Eingelösten kommt ein Stellenwert zu, ebenso der Übertragbarkeit von Texten aus anderen Sprachen als fünfter Intervention, mit der Absicht Metaphorisches einzuschließen. Der informierte, klar strukturierte und gut lesbare Beitrag liefert Hintergrundwissen, das bei der Lektüre der nachfolgenden Aufsätze gute Dienste erweist.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Der Beitrag von Andrei Corbea-Hoisie befasst sich mit der Genese des Gedichtes “Coagula”, indem Manuskripte zwischen 1962 und 1967 durchforstet werden, Lektüre Celans auf Randbemerkungen hin untersucht wird und sich aus dem Fundus Referenzen zu Celans Bukowiner Erfahrungshorizont ergeben, aus dem das Gedicht “Coagula” schöpft. Dabei wird ganz nebenbei auch die Identität des jüdischen Abiturienten David Falik enthüllt, der den Antisemitismus im Gymnasium anprangerte und ermordet wurde. Über die Motive","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Zwischen Realismus und österreichischem Protonaturalismus. Zu Ludwig Anzengrubers Roman Der Sternsteinhof","authors":"Daniel Milkovits","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929387","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929387","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article examines Ludwig Anzengruber’s best-known narrative text, the novel <i>Der Sternsteinhof</i> (1884), in particular its affiliation with realism and Austrian precursors of naturalism. It discusses the history of the novel’s genesis as well as the question of Austrian naturalism in general in order to analyze the text for socially critical aspects, for disillusioned fairy tale motifs, for the representation of the village and the realities of rural life, and for reference to Darwinian figures of thought.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Jetzt & Alles: Österreichische Literatur: Die letzten 50 Jahre ed. by Bernhard Fetz, Stephanie Jacobs and Kerstin Putz (review)","authors":"Vincent Kling","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929401","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Jetzt &amp; Alles: Österreichische Literatur: Die letzten 50 Jahre&lt;/em&gt; ed. by Bernhard Fetz, Stephanie Jacobs and Kerstin Putz &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Vincent Kling &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Bernhard Fetz, Stephanie Jacobs, and Kerstin Putz, eds., &lt;em&gt;Jetzt &amp; Alles: Österreichische Literatur: Die letzten 50 Jahre&lt;/em&gt;. Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 2023. 240 pp. &lt;p&gt;Like &lt;em&gt;The Austrian Riveter&lt;/em&gt;, reviewed in JAS 75.1, the present volume honors Austria’s guest status at the Leipzig Book Fair 2023 and catalogues an exhibit running concurrently in the Österreichisches Literaturmuseum in Vienna and the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum der deutschen Nationalbibliothek Leipzig. Directors of both institutions offer a welcome, Johanna Rachinger for the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (13–14) and Frank Scholze and Stefanie Jacobs on behalf of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum (15–16), respectively. Before the greetings is a large-print reproduction, suitably enough, of Ernst Jandl’s poem “nationalliteratur” (10–11).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This catalogue looks, partly on purpose it would seem, like a coffee table book, replete with hundreds of illustrations, manuscript pages, and photographs but also artifacts of every kind. When the Austrian Literature Museum was first opened, it charmingly boasted in its advertising that it even owned Heimito von Doderer’s walking stick. How much more is here. This book shows enough items to suggest the phrase “everything but the kitchen sink”—and there may be one of those, too.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The items all have relevance to the given writer’s work, like the wooden box in which Arno Geiger kept the photographs from his &lt;em&gt;Die Bewohner von Château Talbot&lt;/em&gt; project (149), the film stills from Oswald Egger’s &lt;em&gt;Wo noch war ich wieder?&lt;/em&gt; (206–207), Friederike Mayröcker’s collection of stuffed Snoopy figures (81), or the small box of Florjan Lipuš’s pencil stubs (55). The items are anything but a hodgepodge or flea market, however, since their arrangement is always correlated to the author’s production; moreover, they are arranged thematically in organized chapters.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Before that, Bernhard Fetz and Kerstin Putz note in their “Auftakt” section (26–27) that 2023 is an appropriate date for bracketing fifty years, half a century after the founding of the Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung in rebellion against the conservative Austrian P.E.N. Club and after the death of Ingeborg Bachmann. The year 1973 also saw the award of the Georg Büchner Prize to Peter Handke, who dedicated his award speech to Bachmann’s memory. This section also includes (29–37) the collage compiled by Marlene &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 152]&lt;/strong&gt; Streeruwitz for Austria, answering an inquiry from a Danish newspaper requesting “ten points of view on the flavours and characteristics a","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Oskar Kokoschka und Österreich: Facetten einer politischen Biografie by Bernadette Reinhold (review)","authors":"Monica Strauss","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929394","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Oskar Kokoschka und Österreich: Facetten einer politischen Biografie&lt;/em&gt; by Bernadette Reinhold &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Monica Strauss &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Bernadette Reinhold, &lt;em&gt;Oskar Kokoschka und Österreich: Facetten einer politischen Biografie&lt;/em&gt;. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2023. 338 pp. &lt;p&gt;With the publication of her encyclopedic volume &lt;em&gt;Oskar Kokoschka und Österreich: Facetten einer politischen Biogafie&lt;/em&gt;, Bernadette Reinhold, who heads the Oskar Kokoschka Center at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts, has joined the disciplines of art history and political inquiry to great effect. The span of Kokoschka’s long life (1886–1980) runs parallel to the evolution of modern Austria from the end of Habsburg rule to the Second Republic. Having passed away at the age of ninety-four in 1980, the artist was not subjected to the country’s self-reckoning that began just a few years later. That later political revision, however—the public acknowledgment of Austria’s wartime complicity in Nazi crimes—prompted Reinhold to reexamine the legacy under her care. There could be no stronger statement of her mission than the citation in her introduction of Ilse Aichinger’s 1946 essay “Aufruf zu Misstrauen.”&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Kokoschka was not initially a political artist, but playing with the public perception of his persona became part of his art early on. Exaggerating the role of victim after the Kunstschau scandals in 1908 and ’09, he flaunted his rejection by shaving his head—a punishment usually meted out to convicts. By displaying his new guise in a series of self-portraits and a carefully posed photograph, he mocked his detractors. In the decade that followed, he continued to dismantle social pieties by making art out of his own vulnerabilities. He depicted himself as the insecure lover of Alma Mahler, for instance, or as a soldier devoid of glory after being wounded in World War I.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Kokoschka’s career took off in the 1920s, despite the political upheavals of the now small and poor country to which Austria had been reduced. He traveled widely, was sought after as a portraitist, and exhibited internationally. He did not initially turn his back on the fascist corporate state established in 1933, hoping it would support the founding of his own art academy. Only after his plan was rejected in 1934 did he give up on the instabilities of his home-land by moving to Prague.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;By then the Czech city had become a haven for exiles from Hitler’s Germany. It was there that Kokoschka was transformed into a political artist. He wrote pointed articles against the Nazi terror, took upon himself the production and distribution of posters asking for help for children caught &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 136]&lt;/strong&gt; in the Spanish Civil War and made his inclusion in the “Entartete Kunst” exhibition the subject of a pugnacious self-port","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"312 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"A Test of Fire of One's Character\": Ludwig Wittgenstein's Self-Examination by Means of War in World War I","authors":"Ulrich Arnswald","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929388","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>To place Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early philosophy specifically in the context of the Great War, which we now call the First World War, is absolutely decisive for understanding his <i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</i>. According to the motto “Fear in face of death is the best sign of a false, i.e. bad, life” found in a July 1916 entry in Wittgenstein’s <i>Private Notebooks 1914–1916</i>, only recently translated into English for the first time, Wittgenstein tried to clarify the question of the meaning of life for himself in the middle of the raging war. These thoughts also changed the nature of his Tractatus from an originally purely logical work to an ethical, religious, and mystical one, as the <i>Notebooks</i> show us in parallel with the creation of the <i>Tractatus</i>. The abysses of war, the mystical, ethical, religious, and logical insights recognized in it, and the self-knowledge gained in war allowed his treatise to mature through the existential intensification caused by war.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Alban Berg's contribution to the Adolf Loos Festschrift: A New Translation","authors":"Daniel Lawler","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929390","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Aban Berg’s poem on the occasion of Adolf Loos’s sixtieth birthday has been translated numerous times. None of these translations, however, captures the form of the poem, rather than the content, which in this case is the key to understanding the work’s meaning. An introduction elaborates these ideas, followed by a new translation incorporating them.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"68 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren ed. by Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein (review)","authors":"Vincent Kling","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929400","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren&lt;/em&gt; ed. by Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Vincent Kling &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Roland Innerhofer and Thomas Kohlwein, eds., &lt;em&gt;WSD*: Die Bibliothek Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler und ihre Lesespuren&lt;/em&gt;. Klagenfurt: Wieser, 2022. 343 pp. &lt;p&gt;This unusual volume, in part an archival study listing the contents of the late Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler’s library, is as beguiling, wide-ranging, stimulating, and expansive as the subject himself, and it forms a worthy tribute to his erudition and his unique place in the history of German/Austrian studies.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Inventorying libraries often yields insights into the creative or critical process not attainable in other ways. Such studies are by nature dutiful catalogues, though readers sometimes find hunches verified, as when Michael Hamburger documented, for example, in his “Hofmannsthals Bibliothek: Ein Bericht” (&lt;em&gt;Euphorion&lt;/em&gt;, 1961), that the meeting between Octavian and Sophie in Act II of &lt;em&gt;Der Rosenkavalier&lt;/em&gt; was in fact directly inspired by the chapters on conversion in &lt;em&gt;The Varieties of Religious Experience&lt;/em&gt; by William James. Most such studies are in essence neutral listings, which does not diminish their importance.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;But anyone who ever knew WSD could never call him or anything about him neutral, and while personal reminiscence is not often a proper tool for a reviewer, the exceptional nature of this book may be best illustrated by a précis of my experience with a scholar of astonishing verve, erudition, and independence, since my encounters mirror those of dozens or even hundreds of others.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Applying for a fellowship to the University of Vienna involved letters of &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 149]&lt;/strong&gt; recommendation; at my request—email was quite new—WSD immediately wrote one, even though we had never met. When I visited him in his office hours to thank him, he knew without any prompting who I was and what I had written and translated; he at once put all the resources of his library at my disposal and gave me copies of his books. He nurtured me and every student of mine he later met by inviting them to seminars involving contemporary writers, who were often themselves present. The soul of cordiality, generosity, and affability, he was also a fearlessly intrepid critic who rejected ideologies, academic fads, and all of the “smelly little orthodoxies,” to use Orwell’s brilliant phrase.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This volume documents his original, unconventional thinking, which always found insights and aspects seldom noticed by others. First, though, a description of how this handsome volume is constituted. The bare listing of 6,371 books, from Abels, Norbert, to Zymner, Rüdiger, provides publication data as recorded in the catalogue of the University Library ","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolution of Servant Laws in the Habsburg Empire","authors":"Ambika Natarajan","doi":"10.1353/oas.2024.a929386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/oas.2024.a929386","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>The evolution of the legal status of servants in Europe is a sparsely researched field. Concentrating on the case of the Habsburg Empire since the sixteenth century, this article emphasizes the importance of considering the evolution of servant laws in discussions about protective legislation for servants. This article argues that the issue of granting rights and protections to servants has always pivoted on the definition of their status in society. Since servants occupied an intermediary position on the freedom scale, the control of people who occupied this position—not slave, yet not entirely free—has been a point of concern for several centuries. Research on how servant laws have historically contributed to the survival of paternalistic attitudes that cripple the rights and freedoms of servants is essential to understanding the more complex parameters of race, gender, and class that govern the lives of this category of predominantly migrant, minority, and female labor.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":40350,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Austrian Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141258599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}