Research perspectives and content
In 1998, the Salzburg writer, essayist and critic Karl-Markus Gauss published a book entitled Ins unentdeckte Österreich. Obituaries and Attacks. In it, he accuses both those who glorify Austria and those who despise it of a pronounced tendency towards a lack of history and a denial of history. The line from Gerhard Fritsch's poem about Austria, "a region to which history has bid farewell"[1] becomes, according to Gauss, a country that has bid farewell to its history. Gauss had reacted to the striking turning points in Austrian development, namely the Waldheim case and EU accession, with two pamphlets. While the silence about the National Socialist era has now been broken, the silence about the last decades of the Habsburg monarchy continues. Gauss is concerned here with the squandered legacy and the betrayed legacy of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. His findings are in line with the recently published theses of the American historian Pieter M. Judson, who is shaking up the previously common interpretations of the Habsburg Empire.
Over the past thirty years, researchers have intensively analysed the Habsburg Empire and its legacy, in some cases thoroughly revising entrenched views. Large-scale research projects have analysed Viennese modernity, post-colonial structures of the Habsburg monarchy and the construction of identities in 20th century Central Europe. The DK "Austrian Studies" picks up from here and attempts to analyse the cultural area referred to as "Austria", which is not necessarily congruent with today's republic, in a multi-dimensional way (European, Central European, national and regional) on the one hand and from deliberately different academic disciplines on the other.
The research field "Austrian Studies" is to be considered interdisciplinary in DK. A large number of subjects from five faculties at the University of Innsbruck are involved: History, Literature, Philosophy, Art History, Music Studies, Architecture, Geography and Law. Coherence is created thematically and through regular collaboration between lecturers and colleagues in various formats.
The DK is closely linked to the Research Area "Cultural Encounters - Cultural Conflicts", the Research Centres "Digital Humanities", "Concepts of Europe" and "Migration and Globalisation". Its aim is to offer doctoral students optimal conditions while working on their dissertations, to ensure interdisciplinary exchange and to promote international networking between all those involved, especially doctoral students. In addition, the DK is intended to strengthen cooperation between academics on site and make specific competences at the Innsbruck location visible to the outside world.
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[1] Gerhard Fritsch (1989): Austria. In: Smiling at its undertakers. Austria. Reader. From 1900 to the present day. Edited by Ulrich Weinzierl, Munich, pp. 359-361.