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.
Kathryn Sederberg
Writing Home: Emigration Diaries of German and Austrian Jews, 1933-1945 considers the practice of diary writing during emigration and exile, and the changes in writing and its functions as the author is geographically displaced. Beyond giving account of the history of emigration, the diary became a part of constructing a new self as a refugee in transit and in exile. Current political and humanitarian discussions surrounding refugee rights, asylum, and migration have fueled an even greater interest in refugee stories from the 1930s and 40s, and in personal accounts of emigration and resettlement. The archival evidence shows us that Jews throughout Europe continued to write diaries during the 1930s and 40s, whether as refugees, or in hiding, imprisoned in ghettos, or even in concentration and death camps. While many of these authors would not survive the Holocaust, some writers were able to find refuge through emigration, taking their diary with them. This project will demonstrate how the diary was often part of daily life for refugees: a site (a physical space and cultural practice) where writers document their search for a new life, and an instrument for interpreting and constructing life as a refugee. With a focus on Jewish emigrants from Germany and Austria, it traces the way these narratives give account of new beginnings in a strange country, where processes of acculturation and new concepts of self, home, and belonging shape the writing subject.
Thomas Antonic
The aim of this project is to study the sojourns of the U.S. poet Allen Ginsberg in Austria in 1957, 1980, and 1993, and to examine the impact of these visits on the poet's work as well as the influence of his time in Austria on the country’s literary and cultural landscape. The focus is thus on the cultural exchange(s) between the USA and Austria. The research results are to be published in book form in English. In addition, two audio CDs with previously unpublished recordings of a performance by Allen Ginsberg in Graz in 1980 will be included with the book.
Patrick Hayes
At the Redemptorist Archives—a Smithsonian-grade religious archive in Philadelphia—we are aiming to place our collections online in order to facilitate greater access to knowledge about the Redemptorists, the Catholic Church in the United States, and more generally, religion in America.
Deborah Cohen – “The World Between Them: Reporters of the Lost Generation”
Deborah Cohen received a 2019 Botstiber Fellowship to finish her book about American foreign correspondents who spent their formative working years in Austria and the territories of the former Hapsburg empire. […]
Matti Bunzl – Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Modernist Residences in California
BIAAS awarded a grant to Matti Bunzl to fund the production of the English publication “Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Modernist Residences in California” (working title) by Andreas Nierhaus (text) and David Schreyer (photography). […]
Sina Hoche – VALIE EXPORT in Context: Transatlantic Affinities between Performance Art and the Women’s Liberation Movement in Austria and the U.S.
Sina Hoche received a BIAAS grant for her project “VALIE EXPORT in Context: Transatlantic Affinities between Performance Art and the Women’s Liberation Movement in Austria and the U.S.” in which she will be examining sketches, drafts, recordings, and other works stored at the VALIE EXPORT Research Center in Linz, Austria and the MoMA in New York City. […]
Monika Platzer – Cold War and Architecture: The Competing Forces that Reshaped Austria after 1945
In contrast to Berlin, Vienna is not perceived as the site of a politicized architectural debate during the Cold War. […]
Edward Muston
BIAAS gave a grant to Edward Muston to conduct research in support of his book project “American Ghosts: Das Amerikabild in Contemporary Austrian Literature.” […]
Joshua Parker
BIAAS granted Joshua Parker $5,800 in order to collect and translate short poetry by Austrian refugees […]
Ron Hassner
BIAAS issued a grant for $4,000 to Ron Hassner in order to publish an English translation of the play Der Herr Karl. […]