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).
Archive for Austria
“City without Jews” in Vienna & Budapest
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Antisemitism, Austria, Hugo Bettauer, Hungary on 28 May 2012 by delclemWhat is a mother tongue?
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Elias Canetti, Franz Kafka, Fritz Mauthner, Jacques Le Rider, language, mother tongue, Paris, s, Vienna on 12 May 2012 by delclemProf 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 Antisemitism, Austria, Karl Lueger, university, Vienna 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 Amstetten, Austria, crime, documentary, Josef Fritzl 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 alternative culture, Austria, exhibition, Hausbesetzer, squatters, Vienna on 22 April 2012 by delclemOccupied! 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 Austria, Manicheanism, politics, popular art, Right populism on 21 April 2012 by delclemPolitical 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 Austria, Central Europe, corruption, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, politics, Slovakia on 17 April 2012 by delclemBribes 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 art, Austria, exhibition, Gustav Klimt, Vienna on 4 April 2012 by delclemHalf-way there
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Anja Salomonowitz, Austria, film, Moldavia, Spanien, Weinviertel on 30 March 2012 by delclemAnja 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
St Colmán in Austria
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Ireland, saints, St Koloman 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







