Von Österreichern, Europäern, und Menschen: Für eine postnationale Literaturwissenschaft und gegen Nationalphilologien; unter Heranziehung einiger Essays Robert Menasses und dem Werk Thomas Brunnsteiners

Abstract

As scholars of humanities we deal with Austrian Studies, German Studies, “Germanistik,” national philologies, national histories of literature, and so on but seldom question the political and ideological premises and decisions that form the basis of the fields we are working in. As nation states move toward merging into a postnational Europe, this article demonstrates the obsolescence of national(istic) concepts in humanities at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with a focus on Austria, on the basis of recent developments and publications such as Wynfrid Kriegleder’s Eine kurze Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich (2011), Klaus Zeyringer and Helmut Gollner’s Eine Literaturgeschichte: Österreich seit 1650 (2012), and Robert Menasse’s essays on Austria and the European Union. Finally, the article draws on the writings of Thomas Brunnsteiner, who was born in Austria and lives in Finland; his identity straddles borders and thus shows the limits of Austrian Studies—and of Austria.