Vienna's Dreams of Europe: Culture and Identity beyond the Nation-State (New Directions in German Studies, 13)

At least since the Enlightenment, Austrian intellectuals have used Europe’s hegemonic cultures as their political and cultural reference points. The Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, and Austria Hungary all conditioned regional understanding of a European cultural space outside today’s dominant paradigm of nationalist colonialism. Today’s scholars in Anglo-American, German, and Central European studies, however, may forget that Austria’s imperial-colonial era ended in 1918 rather than 1945; its status as a nation-state integrated into contemporary European politics was consolidated only after 1989, when its forced neutrality was lifted. The case studies presented here trace an Austrian tradition of thinking about Europe between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. The cultural project of many intellectuals in Vienna lies outside of the norm-referenced logicisms of the Enlightenment project, stressing a more embodied, communitarian, and humane image of the state and its citizens. Belying the dominant image of the public sphere, they used the theater and the essay as mass media to foster public discussions about contemporaneous social and political issues, and referenced their performance to Europe, not just to an imagined nation-state (and its supposed hegemonies based on ethnic nationalism, genre, or class). From Joseph von Sonnenfels through Grillparzer, Nestroy, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Handke and their contemporaries, this volume documents a persistent cultural identity politics that has largely disappeared from view. These authors provide visions of how imperial cultures might modernize and capitalize on their cultural positions and traditions, without falling prey to all the perils of global capital and global rationalization. FC New Directions in German Studies Volumes in the series Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Austria as a Challenge to Europe The persistence of Mitteleuropa in memory (but not in Austria) Austria’s Europe of the imagination: A public space en procès Part 1: An Austrian Imperial Europe 1 Letters to the Ruling Class: The Public Spaces of Enlightenment The sources and their publics Translations and “German national culture” National theaters and the creation of new public spaces The Enlightenments of Europe 2 Extending Europe’s Enlightenment: Why Grillparzer Resists Weimar The poet, the critic, the scholar: Redefining public enlightenment Drama as public deliberation The drama of politics: Stories in public spaces Culture beyond the nation-state 3 Revolution from the Prompter’s Box: Rewriting Public Dreams of Political Morality An eighteenth-century comedy tradition Grillparzer: Changing the body politic Nestroy: The legitimacy of class structures Public change, historical continuity 4 Eclipses, Floods, and Biedermeier Catastrophes: Public Spaces in extremis Genre painting and critical reading The eclipse and the butterflies: Dies irae? Revolution in Vienna Speaking politically in an era of fragmentation Part 2: At the Margins of Europe, In the Heart of Europe 5 Hofmannsthal’s European Revolution: Recapturing a Space for Common Culture Lord Chandos and Bacon The cosmopolitanism of the lost nation Toward a revolutionary conservatism: The modern European 6 Schnitzler and the Space of Public Discourse: The Politics of Decadence in fin de siècle Vienna The legacy of liberalism: Life in fin de siècle Vienna Puppets and pantomimes: Beyond the traditions Traditions as radical modernism 7 Kasperl and the Wiener Gruppe: artmann, Bayer, and Handke From the Wiener Gruppe to Forum Stadtpark: The avant-garde in Austria Kasperl’s new politics Electric Kasperl: Self-immolating literature succumbs to the public The late blooming Kasperl: Handke performs tradition Kasperl in the disorder of Europe 8 A New Balkan Challenge: The Reemergence of Austria’s Europe Habsburg redux: Where cultural politics and politics converge Handke: Cosmopolitan flâneur of Europe The rejoinder: Milo Dor Europe as a state (of mind) Afterword: Austria as Europe? The Art and Science of the Post-National Culture Bibliography Index of Names A sweeping account and re-evaluation of Austrian identity, via literature, culture and history, from the Enlightenment to the present. Vienna's Dreams of Europe puts forward 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-represented 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, which mixes various nationalities, ethnicities, and cultural forms, including ancestors from the Balkans and beyond. Challenging 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 public as European. Working in different terms than today's theorist-critics of the hegemonic West, Katherine Arens posits a political identity resisting two hundred years of European nationalism "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