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Call For Papers
The Department of Contemporary History / Visual Contemporary and
Cultural History at the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies
of the University of Vienna and the International Feuchtwanger Society
invite you to the:
4th Conference of the International Feuchtwanger Society
Vienna, May 7-9, 2009
Exile – Belief
and Culture
1933 – 1945: The day will come (Lion Feuchtwanger)
Deadline: October 2008
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On May 7-9, 2009, the Department of Contemporary History / Visual
Contemporary and Cultural History at the Faculty of Historical and
Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna will host the 4th Conference
of the International Feuchtwanger Society (IFS). Conference cooperation
partners are the City of Vienna as well as institutions dealing with
research, publication and public outreach about exile in the years
1933-1945 and the after-effects of banishment by national socialism
and fascism.
Since its foundation in 2001, the IFS has organised biennial conferences
that take place alternately in Europe and the USA with the aim of
keeping alive the memory of Lion Feuchtwanger's work and life and
remembering the exile situation of German and Austrian emigrants
in the mid-20th century.
The 2nd International
Conference in Sanary-sur-Mer in 2005 focussed on German-speaking
exiles in France. In 2007, the 3rd conference
on the topic „Feuchtwanger and Film“ took place in Los
Angeles at the University of Southern California (USC), home to the
Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, Lion Feuchtwanger's estate, and Villa
Aurora, Feuchtwanger's former home.
In Vienna in May 2009,
the central topic will be creative artists in exile and their approaches
to problems of belief and culture.
Countries of exile from Austria (1933 – 1938) via France, Shanghai,
Israel, Brazil, Mexico to North America will be dealt with. Seven
decades after the beginning of their exile, the banished women and
men will speak to us in Vienna via their works: writers, painters,
musicians, cantors, theatre and film artists, ballet and opera artists,
architects, art collectors and art dealers.
The conference focal points, which deal with topics of cultural
transfer, artistic activity in exile, interpretation and production
in a new cultural milieu, beginning with German exile in Austria
in 1933-38, are:
• Cultural crisis
and meaning: Between belief, ideology and pragmatism
• Redefinitions of gender relations: partners, strong women, weak men.
• Stopovers, networks, support and creative work in the different host
countries between new beginning, integration and failure
(e.g. the
meaning of Los Angeles).
• Languages of the arts: literature, fine art, music, theatre, dance,
opera, cabaret, film and film music. Exile history of works of
art.
• Little known or unknown artists and the masks of new names.
• Switching language and artistic genres
(e.g., from literature and
theatre to film, from literature to music, etc.)
• Generations in exile: children and adolescents in the arts
Milieus and artistic production
of the exiled artists in Europe and other countries of exile are
central to the talks and discussions.
The focus will be on cultural transfer, problems of creativity, the
social environment, the economic needs and the search for an answer
in the arts, in religion, ideologies and human relationships. The
largely unknown women and men of artistic exile, the „second
rank“, will be placed in the limelight. The situation of the
arts and artists after 1945 will also be looked at. How did the countries
of exile become new homes, what stance did Austria, the FRG and the
GDR take towards the exiled artists and the problems of restitution
and return from emigration?
2009 is also the anniversary
of Lion Feuchtwanger's 125th birthday, and numerous events and
projects will take place in Los Angeles
as well as in Germany and in Austria to mark the occasion. In addition,
the USC Libraries will publish the English-language volume “Against
the Eternal Yesterday – Celebrating the Legacy of Exiled
Novelist Lion Feuchtwanger” in fall 2008, commemorating Feuchtwanger’s
artistic and humanitarian efforts.
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Please submit suggestions for contributions by October 1, 2008 to:
Ian Wallace, Frank Stern, Maria Mair via email
Concept:
Univ.-Prof. em. Ian Wallace (President, International Feuchtwanger
Society)
wallacei@blueyonder.co.uk
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Frank Stern (Head of the Focal Point onVisual Contemporary
and Cultural History, Department of Contemporary History, Faculty
of Historical and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna)
frank.stern@univie.ac.at
Conference office:
Maria Mair
Visual Contemporary and Cultural History
Department of Contemporary History
Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1
A-1090 Vienna
Telephone +43-(0)1-4277-41204
Telefax +43-(0)1-4277-9412
Email: maria.mair@univie.ac.at
Office of the International Feuchtwanger Society and Feuchtwanger
Memorial Library:
Michaela Ullmann, Feuchtwanger Curator
ullmann@usc.edu
Marje Schuetze-Coburn, Senior Associate Dean, USC Libraries, Feuchtwanger
Librarian
schuetze@usc.edu
