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.
Péter Tibor Csunderlik [BIAAS-152402]
The project is to survey and catalogue the archival legacy of the Hungarian civic radical politician and theoretician Oscar Jászi (1875–1957), whose papers (including letters, diaries and manuscripts) are held in the Rare Books and Manuscript Collection at Butler Library, Columbia University (New York City). The primarily focus is on the unregistered, unknown correspondence which covers the American years (1925–1957) and activities of Jászi. The project aims the detailed description of the archival legacy: to summarize the contents of the documents and to set up a comprehensive index for the themes of the letters. Along with the detailed description of the archival legacy, a study (both in Hungarian and English) would be elaborated based on the American materials about the almost unknown “American Jászi”, who joined American intellectual and political debates around the New Deal in the 1930s.
Cristian-Alexandru Cercel [BIAAS-152401]
Eighty letters and postcards sent by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) to Eduard Silberstein (1856-1925) are currently deposited at the Library of Congress (LoC). The project sets to trace the itinerary of this correspondence as a thing in motion, while also acknowledging it as text. How did two of the letters get to be published in a German-language journal in Romania in 1965 and how did they - together with seventy-eight other such letters – enter the collections of LoC?
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.
Michael E. Ruhling [BIAAS-142317]
International interdisciplinary conference “Reassessing Haydn’s Sacred Music” in Eisenstadt, Austria 12-14 June 2023, sponsored by the Haydn Society of North America and Internationale Joseph Haydn Privatstiftung Eisenstadt. Presenters will be leading scholars from the U.S. and Austria, and the sessions will be open to the public.
Hannes Richter [BIAAS-142316]
The main purpose of the proposed project is to present the life and work of Yoichi Okamoto to both an academic audience and the public via academic panels and corresponding publications, a physical exhibition, and a website. Okamoto was the personal photographer of General Mark Clark 1945–1948, head of the Pictorial Section United States Information Services in Austria 1948–1954, artist and Presidential Photographer of Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House 1963–1969. In a unique fashion, Okamoto’s work spans from post-War Austria to the highest echelons of Presidential politics in the United States via the medium and art of photography.
Susanne Keppler-Schlesinger [BIAAS-142315]
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.
Despina Stratigakos [BIAAS-142314]
The book chronicles the life, work, and impact of Austrian-American Ella Briggs, an innovative artist, designer, and architect. Briggs appeared at the turning points and places of modernist history: she painted with the Secessionists in Vienna, created luminous rooms in Gilded Age New York, erected workers' housing in the First Austrian Republic, and constructed suburban homes for Americans in the prosperous Roaring Twenties. Fifteen Austrian and American experts in modernism collaborate in this project to uncover the little-known history of Briggs, revealing how her international networks helped to spread ideas of modernism between the United States and Austria.
Kathryn Sederberg [BIAAS-142312]
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.
Anne Rothfeld [BIAAS-142311]
Evelyn Tucker, a Museum, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) Representative, worked in U.S. military occupied Austria, investigating and restituting Nazi plundered Austrian-owned cultural property from 1946 to 1949. This grant supports travel to Austrian and German archives, and American museums to explore primary source materials that remain underutilized in the quest to bring Eve Tucker’s work to the forefront. The project aims to broaden the conceptualizations of restitutions and the differing narratives surrounding the investigations. A firebrand, Tucker carved an ethical path to restitute Austrian cultural property to the rightful owners as she encountered corrupt military practices. Her meticulous and colorful reports and correspondence provide a rich and nuanced story; and personify Tucker’s own mixture of an appreciation for the beauty of fine arts, and a healthy dose of realism with a hint of guarded enthusiasm.
James McSpadden [BIAAS-142307]
This project will explore behind-the-scenes political and personal connections among interwar Austrian politicians during Austria’s First Republic. From socialists to conservatives, Austrian politicians mingled with foreign guests and their political rivals at social gatherings in Vienna. In turn, these Austrians built up a network of political and social acquaintances that included a number of American senators, representatives, and high government officials. This archival research will not only further an understanding of private cross-party political connections in interwar Austria but also explore continuities from this surprisingly robust informal Viennese political culture into the lives of conservative and socialist Austrian émigrés to the United States during the 1930s and early 1940s.