Annual Conference of the Austrian Studies Association

University of Illinois at Chicago, March 16-19, 2017

“Inter-Texts: Correspondences, Connections, and Fissures in Austrian Culture”

The 2017 Austrian Studies Association conference committee invites proposals for papers that explore the multiple intertexts that inform our readings of the cultural and historical products and sites of modern Austria, the Habsburg Empire, and its former territories. In light of recent political and cultural schisms that have marked Austria, its European neighbors, and the U.S., we welcome a consideration of the ways in which connections can be creatively mapped across diverse fields of culture. The notion of intertext should be understood broadly as a mode of connectivity that includes citation, borrowing, recurring tropes, homage, recontextualization, dialogue, pastiche, and assemblage. Intertexts might be explored in the context of cross-temporal citation, transcultural dialogue, or aesthetic form. Intertexts can, of course, be aesthetic, historical, and/or political. Papers might explore multiple intertexts produced in works and discourses emerging within modern Austria, the Habsburg Empire, or within the context of the former Habsburg territories. Likewise, papers might examine the recontextualization of Austrian or Habsburg tropes within other cultural contexts. We welcome paper proposals that consider Austrian intertexts from the perspective of Literary and Cultural Studies, Film and Media Studies, Art History, Music, History, and all related fields.

Some possible topics:

  • Habsburg nostalgia as cultural trope
  • The afterlives of Viennese Modernism
  • Intertextualities in works by Franz Grillparzer, Adalbert Stifter, Franz Werfel, Ingeborg Bachmann, Robert Musil, Elfriede Jelinek, Oskar Kokoschka, Michael Haneke, Barbara Albert, VALIE EXPORT, Franz Schubert, Olga Neuwirth, etc.
  • Networks of artists and authors (Jung-Wien, Wiener Werkstätte, Wiener Schule, Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung, Forum Stadtpark, coop99, etc.)
  • Intermediality
  • German-Austrian intertexts
  • Austrian cultural icons (Mozart, Sisi, Franz Josef, Klimt, Falco, Conchita Wurst, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christoph Waltz, etc.) that signify beyond the Austrian context
  • Postmodern and post-postmodern aesthetics
  • Political and historical intertexts
  • Trans-temporal intertexts
  • Migration and its intertexts
  • Enlightenment discourse as ironic intertext
  • Intertextuality and irony
  • Self-citation
  • Intertexts within political discourses in diverse cultural spaces (i.e. Austria and Germany; Austria and U.S.; etc.)
  • Citation and gender
  • Authorship and genius
  • Haunted texts / ghosting in texts
  • The environment as intertext
  • The intertexts of post-humanism
  • The affective modes of intertexts

Proposal submission:

Please send 300-word abstracts and a brief biography (no more than 200 words) to asachicago2017@outlook.com by October 15, 2016. Papers may be presented in either German or English. Both individual papers and complete panels may be proposed. If you are proposing a complete panel, please be sure to include abstracts, bios, and contact information for all presenters in your E-mail. The conference organizers reserve the right to make modifications to panels.

Limited funds may be available to support graduate student travel. If you are a graduate student and wish to apply for travel funding, please send us your request and a brief budget proposal along with your abstract submission.

All conference presenters should be members of the Austrian Studies Association. Membership in the ASA includes a subscription to the Journal of Austrian Studies.

Information about how to join the ASA may be found online.

Conference organizers:

Imke Meyer and Heidi Schlipphacke, Department of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

Queries about the conference may be sent to asachicago2017@outlook.com