If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why?

Abstract

If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why? JAS Editors For this issue's JAS Extra, we have something a little different that we hope will be not only interesting but also useful. If you're like us, you are always tinkering with your syllabi and looking for that book that will really get students excited about the material. And what better way to get new ideas than by asking our colleagues? So we asked our editorial board members the question posed at the top of this page: "If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why?" You can find their recommendations below. Some of the titles will be familiar and may appear on your syllabi already; others may be less expected. Perhaps some will even inspire you to add them to your own (always growing) reading list or fill that gap in your own education of which you are guiltily aware. In any case, we hope there will be something here for everyone and are grateful to the colleagues who kindly shared their suggestions with us. Katherine Arens, University of Texas—Austin claudio magris, danubio Danubio (1986), translated from the Italian as Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea (1988), is the book that introduces the various histories of the regions implicated by the Habsburg monarchy, cast as a travelogue of a journey from the river's source in Bavaria down to its delta at the Black Sea. Magris combines myths, fairy tales, histories of many countries and eras, and stories of encounters to show how the cultures of Central Europe are not a melting pot but rather a tapestry that needs unravelling. [End Page 71] In recapitulating a "grand tour," he shows how histories and studies create mythical lands with real lives. If you want to see a philosopher's version of the same trip, look for the 2004 documentary about Martin Heidegger called The Ister (available on DVD), made by David Barison and Daniel Ross. It shows how the philosopher used the river to tell stories about German nationalism, based on Friedrich Hölderlin's ode of the title. Steven Beller, Independent Scholar allan janik and stephen toulmin, wittgenstein's vienna Approaching its 50th anniversary, this book is still a—indeed, the most—highly recommendable introduction to the cultural and intellectual history of Vienna 1900, which remains a central topic of Austrian Studies. It was written under the influence of Carl Schorske's concept of fin-de-siècle Vienna (even though it preceded Schorske's own magnum opus of 1980). But by approaching the subject from a different substantial question (the deeper meaning of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Philosophicus) and with a somewhat different disciplinary approach (the much more context-based History of Ideas), Janik and Toulmin ended up presenting a different world of Vienna 1900 than that of Schorske. The dialogue between the two perspectives is one that has been a great motor for academic and intellectual insight and discovery ever since. I do not think one can really understand modern Austrian Studies without having read this book. Many of its details, and even some of its arguments (including those derived from Schorske), have been shown by later research to be imperfect or misleading, but its methodology of looking for connections between the thought of Wittgenstein and others within the context of the Habsburg Monarchy and Central Europe—and even beyond—is one that was immensely fruitful, and it remains a model for contemporary research. Michael Burri, Bryn Mawr College adam kożuchowski, the afterlife of austria-hungary: the image of the habsburg monarchy in interwar europe On November 11, 1918, the day that the armistice agreement formally ended World War I, Sigmund Freud wrote that "Austria-Hungary is no more. I would [End Page 72] not wish to live elsewhere. There is no question of emigration for me. I shall continue to live with the torso and imagine it is the entirety." In The Afterlife of Austria-Hungary: The Image of the Habsburg Monarchy in Interwar Europe (2013...