Contemporary Austrian StudiesContemporary Austrian Studieshttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2009-11-19T13:01:42ZSquarespaceVolume 18: The Schüssel Era in Austriahttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/volume-18-the-schussel-era-in-austria.htmlAdministrator2009-11-19T12:59:07Z2009-11-19T12:59:07Z 

Günter Bischof and Fritz Plasser, Editors
Contemporary Austrian Studies, Vol. 18
ISBN-10 1-60801-999-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-60801-009-7
382 pages • $40.00

Featuring essays by Peter Gerlich, Fritz Plasser/Peter Ulram, Heinrich Neisser, Reinhard Heinisch, Heinrich Niesser, Johannes Ditz, Josef Leidenfrost, Anton Pelinka et al., as well as a FORUM on the “disturbing creativity” of Austrian artists, book reviews and the review of Austrian politics.

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Beginnning with volume 18, Contemporary Austrian Studies is published as a joint venture by University of New Orleans Publishing and Innsbruck University PressAll UNO Press books are available from online booksellers as well as your local bookstore. Distributed to the trade in the USA by National Book Network.

]]>New Prespectives on Austrians and World War IIhttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2009/1/24/new-prespectives-on-austrians-and-world-war-ii.htmlAdministrator2009-01-24T16:10:08Z2009-01-24T16:10:08Z

For more than a generation after World War II, official government doctrine and many Austrians insisted they had been victims of Nazi aggression in 1938 and, therefore, bore no responsibility for German war crimes. During the past twenty years this myth has been revised to include a more complex past, one with both Austrian perpetrators and victims. Part one describes soldiers from Austria who fought in the German Wehrmacht, a history only recently unearthed. Richard Germann covers units and theaters Austrian fought in, while Thomas Grischany demonstrates how well they fought. Ela Hornung looks at case studies of denunciation of fellow soldiers, while Barbara Stelzl-Marx analyzes Austrian soldiers who were active in resistance at the end of the war.

Stefan Karner summarizes POW treatment on the Eastern front. Part two deals with the increasingly difficult life on the Austrian homefront. Fritz Keller takes a look at how Vienna survived growing food shortages. Ingrid Bohler takes a rare look at life in small-town Austria. Andrea Strutz analyzes narratives of Jewish refugees forced to leave for the United States. Peter Ruggenthaler and Philipp Lesiak examine the use of slave laborers. And Brigitte Kepplinger summarizes the Nazi euthanasia program. The third part deals with legacies of the war, particularly postwar restitution and memory issues. Based on new sources from Soviet archives, Nikita Petrov describes the Red Army liberation. Winfried Garscha analyzes postwar war crimes trials against Austrians. Brigitte Bailer-Galanda and Eva Blimlinger present a survey of postwar restitution of property. And Heidemarie Uhl deals with Austrian memories of the war.

]]>The Changing Austrian Voterhttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2007/3/8/the-changing-austrian-voter.htmlAdministrator2007-03-08T14:44:17Z2007-03-08T14:44:17Z]]>Volume XVIhttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/volume-xvi.htmlAdministrator2007-03-07T22:32:05Z2007-03-07T22:32:05Z Peter Gerlich

Europeanization in disguise

If it is true that political systems demonstrate their dominant characteristics during election time, one has to conclude that the political system of Austria has not yet arrived in Europe. Looking at the process of the 2006 election in a broader sense, at the campaign, at the actual voting and at the negotiations leading to the formation of a new government, one can observe trends toward an Americanization and possibly a Reaustrification of Austrian politics, but hardly any orientation towards the European Union or towards patterns of politics in other member states. All observers agree that the 2006 campaign was characterized by an import of experts, strategies and techniques from the United States. That was particularly true for the campaign of the SPÖ.]]>

Sexuality in Austriahttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2007/1/4/sexuality-in-austria.htmlAdministrator2007-01-04T15:08:51Z2007-01-04T15:08:51ZCAS XV, Sexuality in Austria

cas_15.jpgScholars have increasingly been investigating human sexuality as an important field of social history in particular national cultures. This volume examines both continuities and changing patterns of sexual behavior in Austria.

Sexuality in Austria reflects the broad variety of such recent research. David Luft introduces the volume with an essay on sexuality and gender in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Scott Spector traces the emergence of homosexuality in tabloids at the same time. Maria Mesner surveys the growing number of

sex counseling organizations in interwar Vienna, some driven by eugenics, others by social concerns. Ties with Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement in the U.S. are also documented. Ingrid Bauer and Renate Huber are the first scholars to treat the “foreign encounters” between Austrian women and occupation soldiers during the postwar quadripartite Austrian occupation regime in a comparative framework. Franz Eder traces the growing presence of sexual issues in post-World War II popular media and suggests parallels with the German case.

Matti Bunzl analyses the legal penalties for homosexuality in postwar Austria and the liberation of the gay movement as a result of EU pressures after Austria joined the European Union in 1995. Peter Judson analyzes the major influence of the Catholic Church on Austrian sexuality through the lens of a recent gay and sex abuse scandals in the church hierarchy. In “romancing the foreigner” Julia Woesthoff analyzes the growing presence of foreign workers (gastarbeiter) in postwar Austria and their sexual contacts with natives.


In a “non-topical essay” Katharina Wegan views the Austrian historical memory of the Austrian State Treaty through the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2005 and Günter Bischof analyzes the avalanche of historical exhibits and exhibit catalogues that flooded Austria in the “Gedankenjahr” 2005.

]]>Austrian Foreign Policy in Historical Contexthttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2006/7/30/610818.htmlAdministrator2006-07-30T23:25:14Z2006-07-30T23:25:14ZContemporary Austrian Studies, vol. XIV
Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, Michael Gehler, eds.

cas_austrianforeignpolicy.jpgThis volume covers foreign policy in the 20th century and offers an up-to-date status report of the study of Austria’s foreign policy trajectories and diplomatic options both in the historical and political sciences. Eva Nowotny, the current Austrian Ambassador to the U.S., introduces the volume with an analysis of the art and practice of Austrian diplomacy in historical perspective. Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch analyses recent Balkans diplomacy from his personal perspective as an EU-emissary in the Bosnian and Kosovo crises.

Historians Günther Kronenbitter, Alexander Lassner, Günter Bischof, Joanna Granville and Martin Kofler provide historical case studies of pre-and post-World War I and II Austrian diplomacy, Austria’s dealing with Hungarian crisis of 1956, and its mediation between Kennedy and Khrushchev in the early 1960s. Political Scientists Romain Kirt, Stefan Mayer, and Gunther Hauser analyze small states foreign policy making in a globalizing world, as well as Austrian federal states’ separate regional policy initiatives abroad vis-à-vis the national government, and her role vis-à-vis current European security initiatives. Michael Gehler suggests a periodization scheme for post-World War II Austrian foreign policy regimes and provides a valuable summary for researchers of both the available archival and printed diplomatic source collections.

In 2005 Austria is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazi regime and the 50th anniversary of the State Treaty that ended the occupation and returned full sovereignty to the country. A “Historiography Roundtable” is dedicated to the Austrian Occupation decade (1955-1945) leading up to this event. Günter Bischof reports on the state of occupation historiography, Oliver Rathkolb on the historical memory of the occupation, Michael Gehler on the context of the German question, Wolfgang Mueller and Norman Naimark on Stalin’s Cold War and Soviet policies towards Austria during those years.
Review essays and book reviews on art theft, anti-semitism, the Hungarian crisis of 1956, South Tyrol and regional identity in Austria complete the volume.

Günter Bischof is professor of history and director of CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans; Anton Pelinka is professor of political science and dean of the political science and sociology faculty at the University of Innsbruck and director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna; Michael Gehler is professor of contemporary history at the University of Innsbruck.

]]>A Look Back...http://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2006/7/24/a-look-back.htmlAdministrator2006-07-24T21:40:07Z2006-07-24T21:40:07Zcas_1994.jpg

The presentation of CAS volume I "Austria in the New Europe" in Vienna's "Presseclub Concordia" in April 1994. The editors Guenter Bischof and Anton Pelinka with Peter Marboe, head of the culture section in the Foreign Ministry (from left to right).

]]>Volume 13 - Religion in Austriahttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2006/7/24/volume-13-religion-in-austria.htmlAdministrator2006-07-24T20:43:02Z2006-07-24T20:43:02ZClick here to read the H-Net Book review for this Volume!

cas_13_small.gifLike most European countries, Austria does not have a strict separation between state and church. Since the counter-reformation, it has been considered a country strongly influenced by Catholicism. Austrian attitudes towards religion derive from the Habsburg experience, when emperors and the Catholic Church acted in complete unison. This new volume in the Contemporary Austrian Studies series reevaluates this age-old tradition.

Religion in Austria focuses on on relationships between political parties and religious faiths. Individual chapters analyze the impact of religion on contemporary Austria. They explore the post-World War II decline- perhaps even the demise-of political Catholicism in the Second Republic: the political pluralism, which the still-dominant Catholic Church had to become accustomed to; and the principle of political tolerance all major political parties have learned to accept. Contributors discuss the different formal (legal) links between the privileged denominations (the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism) and the state, especially in areas of education and public finance.

Particular emphasis is given to the two traditional Christian churches - the Roman Catholic and the Protestant (Lutherans and Reformists) - as well as to the fastest-growing new dominations, Islam and Judaism. Since a growing number of Austrians declare themselves to be officially not affiliated with any of the denominations in this age of secularism, the phenomenon of the Konfesionslosen (persons without religious affiliation) is also examined. This volume presents different approaches to the changing trajectory of religious practice in Austria, including contemporary history, political science, sociology, and law. It will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and students of religion.

]]>Volume 12: The Americanization/Westernization of Austriahttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2006/7/23/volume-12-the-americanizationwesternization-of-austria.htmlAdministrator2006-07-23T21:46:17Z2006-07-23T21:46:17Zwesternization_sm.jpgPolitical, economic, social, and cultural modernization dramatically transformed twentieth-century Austria. Innovative new methods of production and management, such as the assembly line, changed Austrian business after World War I. At the same time, jazz, Hollywood movies, television programming, and mass commodities were as popular in Austria as elsewhere in Western Europe. Even political campaigns followed American trends. All this occurred despite the fact that in West Germany, American nostrums and models had been rejected, modified, or "translated" into milder versions. Ultimately, Austria was "Western Europeanized" when it joined the European Union in 1995.

How Western are the Austrian? This volume analyzes trends toward Americanization and Westernization in Austria throughout the twentieth century.

]]>Volume XIhttp://www.centeraustria.org/contemporary-austrian-studies/2006/7/11/volume-xi.htmlAdministrator2006-07-11T14:05:20Z2006-07-11T14:05:20Zcas_11.gifThe Years of Chancellors Dollfuss and Schuschnigg’s authoritarian governments (1933/34-1938) have been denounced as “Austrofascism” from the left, or defended as a Christian corporate State (“Ständestaat”) from the right. Austria was in a desperate struggle go maintain its national independence vis-à-vis Hitler’s Germany. In the end, the Nazis invaded and annexed Austria (“Anschluss”). The essays in this volume stay away from these heated historiographical debates and look at economic, domestic, and international politics sine ira et studio.

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