Archive for Austria

“City without Jews” in Vienna & Budapest

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on 28 May 2012 by delclem

Stadt ohne Juden(“City without Jews”) was the title of a 1922 best-selling novel by the Jewish Viennese author Hugo Bettauer  who was assassinated by an Austrian Nazi three years later; it is available in print again (see the review in the German section of my blog). It is an disturbingly prophetic piece of fiction about a Viennese mayor who expels the jews from ‘his’ city (although everything comes to a happy ending eventually; unfortunately is subscribes to some stereotypes about Jews as well).

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What is a mother tongue?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on 12 May 2012 by delclem

Prof Jacques Le Rider on Fritz Mauthner, Franz Kafka, and Elias Canetti.

Lecture during the symposium Languages other than mine, May 2012

Video (c) College de France, May 2012

Undoing Lueger in Vienna

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 29 April 2012 by delclem


Vienna in row over legacy of historic mayor Karl Lueger: the plans to change street signs bearing name of the antisemitic politician who inspired Hitler cause far right complaints >article (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2012

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 26 April 2012 by delclem

4 years ago, the daughter of  Josef Fitzl was liberated from her father’s basement, after almost 25 years of  captivity and incest.

However, the aesthetics of the documentary not only investigates the dark side of white trash culture in Lower Austria – in its search for ‘fitting images’ for the almost unimaginable crime, it also reveals the stereotypical Othering of Austria in the cultural imaginary of Great Britain… (c) SKY & back2back, 2009

Besetzt – Occupied!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on 22 April 2012 by delclem

Occupied! is the current motto at the Wien Museum. A new exhibition explores the struggle for free spaces in the city. Between the “Happening of 100 Days“ in 1976 and the eviction of squatters from “Epizentrum Lindengasse” in 2011 Vienna has seen some turbulent times. Article (c) wieninternational.at, 2012

Political Manicheanism

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 21 April 2012 by delclem

Political Pop Culture from Austria, or a little follow-up on stupid Rightpopulist propaganda: red is color of the Social Democratic ‘devil’, blue the national ‘forces of light’, spiced up with a bit of redneckism (Volk) under the disguise of grassroot democracy. However, it looks as if the devil were more muscled and in the winning position: intended by the amateur artist Richi Benz who drew this and posted it on facebook?

“Everything ‘national’ has become something really bush-league long ago.”
(THOMAS MANN, Werke, XIII: 743)

Continent of Corruption

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on 17 April 2012 by delclem

Bribes as the Lubricant of Neoliberal Central Europe

Let’s be honest: the center of Europe is not just the region of phony Habsburg nostalgia and a shared cuisine. It is also the place where experienced patients hand over a box of chocolates (with a creatively hidden banknote) to the treating doctor and/or the nurse. Continue reading

Five Times Klimt

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 4 April 2012 by delclem
“The Klimt anniversary year has now really got going and there are currently five different Klimt exhibitions for fans to choose among. With exhibits ranging from sketches and friezes to simple postcards written by him, there seems to be nothing in Vienna right now that couldn’t be linked in some way to the famous Jugendstil painter.” Article (c) wieninternational.at, 2012

Half-way there

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on 30 March 2012 by delclem

Anja Salomonowitz’ film Spanien is “the story of the Moldavian refugee Sava, who, en route to Spain, ends up in Austria’s Weinviertel region and finds work and accommodation in a church in need of restoration. Here, he meets Magdalena, a woman marked by ‘love’, and begins a relationship with her, as well as coming across her vengeful ex-husband.” > text (c) wieninternational.at, 2012

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St Colmán in Austria

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on 29 March 2012 by delclem

“WE ALL think ourselves martyrs to the Irish language, just because we were held hostage for a few years by Peig Sayers, or suffered mild torture at the hands of the modh coinniollach. But spare a thought for St Koloman (or Colmán of Austria), who may be history’s only recorded case of someone who did die – violently – for the cúpla focal.”
> text by Frank McNally (c) IRISH TIMES, 2012