LFU:online

Students will gain a broader historical view on the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. They will learn about how people from the Central European region perceived the world and how foreigners perceived the Habsburg lands from seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Through the examination of key texts and exposure to sources, students will learn to develop their analytical skills. By comparing and discussing texts written by individuals native and foreign to the Habsburg lands, students will become accustomed to broader historical interpretations and understandings of Austrian history. By learning how to apply tools more commonly used in postcolonial studies such as transculturalization, circulation, and the concept of othering, students will be able to appreciate and construct a less eurocentric idea of the Austrian for themselves.

Knowledge about oneself and others is produced through interaction. Cultural, economic, and social exchanges between individuals both inside and outside a common space shape an individual’s understandings of belonging, heritage, and place. There is no one fixed site of knowledge-production, but rather a continual process of learning, borrowing, and transference. Postcolonial studies have given us greater insights into these shared dynamics of perception and cultural identities. It has allowed us to see how constructions of worldviews in contact zones reverberated back to places of origin and how knowledge acquired in one locale could circulate and combine into something new in another.

By focusing on the concepts of transculturation and circulation, this course equips students with a broader toolkit with which to view and analyze Austrian history. It introduces them to the key texts within postcolonial studies and cultural theory and will instruct students in the use of sources that show the history of Austria (seventeenth to twentieth centuries) from inside and outside. It encourages students to engage with Austrian history through various viewpoints and historical mediums. Comparing and contrasting accounts of ‘Austria’ by ‘Austrians’ and foreigners, enables students to appreciate the process of shared knowledge-production.

Following on from an initial class which exposes students to the methodologies and concepts needed for the rest of the course, each subsequent class is orientated around two primary source texts which depict either who a foreigner viewed the Austrian lands or how an ‘Austrian’ native viewed the world around them. Students will be guided in how to analyze each text and how the specific medium or type of text alters its historical meaning. Students will be instructed in how to uncover and approach transculturation elements within primary texts and how to identify patterns of knowledge circulation within a given locality or period.

Reading the key material and literature provided via OLAT is essential for class participation and presentation. Writing and presenting a short paper (ca. 7 pages) in either German or English forms the basis of the examination. Students may choose to use either English or German in the course.

Core Literature

Johannes Feichtinger, “Kakanian Mélange: Habsburg Central Europe and the Shift from the Study of Identity to the Study of Similarity,” in Anil Bhatti and Dorothee Kimmich, eds., Similarity: A Paradigm for Culture Theory (New York/New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2018), 225-245.

Andreas Kilcher, “Assimilation and Circulation: A Nineteenth-century universalistic model of knowledge,” in  Anil Bhatti and Dorothee Kimmich, eds., Similarity: A Paradigm for Culture Theory (New York/New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2018), 192-209.

Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2nd Edition (London: Routledge, 2008). 

Kapil Raj, “Beyond Postcolonialism… and Postpositivism: Circulation and the Global History of Science,” Isis, 104, no. 2 (2013), 337-347.

Passing the exam of BW ÖG prior to this course is recommended. Students may choose to use either English or German in the course.