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.
Jacqueline Vansant [BIAAS-152411]
Some weeks after National Socialist Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, a small group of 15 and 16 year-old classmates of Jewish heritage promised one another that they would do their best to maintain ties. The boys’ original promise resulted in an extraordinary group correspondence that stretched over fifteen years and spanned three continents. This correspondence serves as the point of departure for a collective biography focusing on the classmates who participated in the exchange. The Botstiber Research Grant will support archival research on the army experiences of the Austrian classmates who fled to the United States. Three of the most avid correspondents served in the army and their attitudes and varied experiences highlight the important contributions they made to the U.S. military.
Marlo Poras [BIAAS-152409]
When filmmaker Marlo Poras' grandmother escaped Nazi occupied Austria, she was stripped of her citizenship and everything she owned. Now Austria is offering Marlo the chance to “reclaim” her grandmother’s citizenship for herself. The Escape, a documentary film, follows Marlo’s journey deep into the Alps to unearth an unsettling family history that has haunting lessons for today.
Miriam Gassner [BIAAS-152403]
The research project in question undertakes the attempt of tracing the “transfer” of legal thought, Austrian norms and maybe also “Austrian legal culture” to the United States. It does so by telling the story of three “Austrian” legal scholars, who all left their alma mater between 1933 and 1945 and continued their career in the United States - working each in one of the main fields of law (Private law, Public law, Legal Philosophy).
Veronika Zwerger [BIAAS-142318]
The United States was one of the most important receiving countries for Austrians who had to flee National Socialists. A vast amount of archival material in the Austrian Archive of Exile Studies proves these tight historic connections between the two countries. The exhibition will educate a new generation of Austrians about the deep-rooted connections between its citizens and the countries which housed its refugees, such as the United States.
Filip Šír [BIAAS-142313]
Music was of crucial importance to the immigrants from Austria-Hungary, and cultural and social practice of great importance to their communities in the USA. They could document this facet of their self-identification thanks to new technologies - in the form of wax cylinders. A remarkable set of recordings can be found under the title of "Ed. Jedlička Records'' in two phonograph cylinder collections held at the University of Iowa Libraries and Library of Congress. This more than a century-old set of unique cylinders contains original recordings of Bohemian songs, music, or short humorous performances, and are some of the earliest recordings made for and by a specific ethnic group in the United States.
Anjeana Hans [BIAAS-142303]
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.
Marsha Leah Rozenblit [BIAAS-132210]
Three Times Homeless: The Last Generation of Austrian Jews explores how Jews born in Habsburg Austria around 1900, who came of age in that large multinational state, coped with the fact that they lost their homeland several times in the course of their lives and had to craft new homes for themselves, first in the Habsburg successor states, and then elsewhere as refugees from Nazi Europe, especially in America. How did these Jews create new national and Jewish identities, and how successful were they in forging a new sense of at-homeness in very foreign environments? What connections did they still retain to their former Austrian homeland? Why were they more successful in making a new home in America than anywhere else?
Andreas Praher [BIAAS-132209]
The research project will analyze the transatlantic migration of skiers and ski instructors who migrated from Austria to the United States for different reasons in the first half of the 20th century. The focus will be on sociopolitical, economic, cultural, institutional and structural circumstances in which migration in skiing took place from the 1930s to the 1960s. In studying the historical patterns of migration, factors that have influenced and stimulated the movement of sport labor should be identified. The research work asks about the socio-cultural background of men and women. It will take into account the female ski migration and the impact of the Jewish exodus in skiing on the American sport system.
Dóra Fedeles-Czeferner [BIAAS-132205]
Rosika Schwimmer (Budapest, 1877-New York, 1948), one of the best-known women’s rights leaders in the Austro-Hungarian Empire became a celebrated peace activist in the U.S. She was awarded the World Peace Prize and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Schwimmer formed a crucial link between the Hungarian, Austrian and transnational women’s and peace movements and made a marked contribution in the U.S. where she lived in exile from 1921 until her death. The project seeks to explore these transatlantic connections by drawing on the widest possible range of archival sources from Hungary, Austria, the U.S., England and the Netherlands. The ultimate aim is to provide a comprehensive monograph on Schwimmer’s life and career.
James Boyd [BIAAS-132203]
Selling Emigration examines how the commerce of migration influenced departures from Europe in the nineteenth century. It explores migration as a sellable commodity, interrogating the role of migration commerce in migration decisions, and demonstrating the ways in which transport and shipping were connected to ethnic economies of mobility. The project is a monograph study on the role of migration commerce across Europe. The chapter funded by this grant will examine economies of mobility in Central Europe, and the role of Atlantic migration commerce as it affected the territories of the Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian Empire.