Database of Funded Projects
The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies has generously funded academic research and public history projects that promote an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria. The following search tools make it possible to explore these projects and to learn more about the scholars and organizations who have received BIAAS grants and fellowships.
Susanne Keppler-Schlesinger
Together with her daughter Leonille Wittgenstein and son Constantin Wittgenstein, celebrated Swiss-Hungarian actress Sunnyi Melles, who has i.a. performed the role of Jedermann’s lover (Buhlschaft) at the Salzburg Festival 1990-1993, will trace the eventful journey of Max Reinhardt’s life in a multimedial way, by reading from writings and contemporary documents, with music and sound design by Constantin Wittgenstein. The reading will last about 50 minutes. The performance will be followed by an artist talk with Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler, Austrian politician, businesswoman and president of the Salzburg Festival 1995-2022. The event will take place on November 29th, 2023, at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.
Anjeana Hans
This project focuses on Jewish filmmakers, actors, and film technicians forced to leave Germany after the Nazi’s rise to power, many of whom went first to Austria and worked in the independent film industry that existed there between 1933 and 1937. The project will examine how these independent films engage with the experience of persecution and whether the trauma of expulsion and expatriation finds expression on the levels of both narrative and form. Further, in examining these productions closely, contextualizing them in their historical moment and against the broader backdrop of early Austrian film, and considering their afterlives, the aim is to trace not only the impact of exile on these films, but also their influence on film broadly, both internationally and in Hollywood specifically. Anjeana Hans is a Professor of German Studies and affiliated faculty in Cinema and Media Studies at Wellesley College.
Patricia Allmer
Tilly Losch: Interstitial Modernism between Vienna and Hollywood offers the first book-length analysis of the life and extensive corpus of works by the Austrian-Jewish dancer, choreographer, film star, painter, and celebrity Tilly Losch (1903-75). Redressing critical neglect of her work, the book will resituate Losch in the interstices of conventional definitions of modernist cultural practice. It will employ recent theoretical and historical material alongside extensive archival research to recalibrate and refine our understanding of transatlantic modernism and of Austria-US relations via a critical assessment of Losch’s long and diverse interdisciplinary and transmedial career in Vienna, Paris, England, New York, and Hollywood.
University of Innsbruck
The Department of American Studies at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) is hosting an online conference in conjunction with an on-campus symposium that explores the manifold relationships between mountains and cinema. A special focus of this conference will be on transatlantic encounters and historical trajectories that connect Central European and North American film cultures. The conference is part of the research project "Delocating Mountains: Cinematic Landscapes and the Alpine Model" (https://www.uibk.ac.at/projects/mountainfilmstudies/index.html.en) run by Christian Quendler [...]
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies
The Nanovic Institute for European Studies received a BIAAS grant for a 2.5-day workshop dedicated to creating a “moral biography” of the 1921 US-Austria Peace Treaty. On August 24, 1921, the United States and Austria signed a Peace Treaty in Vienna in the aftermath of the First World War. This step was necessary for peace building purposes since the US Senate refused to consent to the ratification of the multilateral Treaty of Saint Germain in [...]
Leon Botstein and The Bard Music Festival
Leon Botstein and The Bard Music Festival received a BIAAS grant for its exploration of the life, work, and legacy of Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Korngold and His World: Bard Music Festival 2019 took take place at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, in August 2019. […]
Paul Lerner – Vienna in Hollywood
BIAAS issued a grant for $10,000 to Paul Lerner (working in cooperation with Doris Berger (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures), Regina Range (University of Alabama), and Michaela Ullmann (USC Libraries) to fund a two-day symposium in 2020 on the topic of Austrians in Hollywood and Austrian-American cinematic connections. […]
Regina Range
Regina Range received a 2018 BIAAS grant for her project, “From Vienna to Hollywood: Uncovering the Forgotten Lives and Careers of Three Female Austrian-Jewish Exile Scriptwriters.” […]
The Center at Camden County College
In the spring of 2019, The Center at Camden County College will present a five-part lecture series at its main campus in Blackwood, New Jersey on the impact of Austrians on filmmaking both in the USA and abroad. […]
Vera Kropf
BIAAS issued a grant for $6,700 to Vera Kropf in order to study Ilse Lichtblau Lahn’s role in the film industry during the mid-20th century. […]