Courses

Introduction to Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

The main goal of this introduction will be to make students, coming from very different cultures, familiar with the background knowledge necessary to follow the specific courses (arts, music, literature etc.). A stress will be laid on the explanation of phenomena and terms indispensable for the understanding of European and especially Austrian culture and values.

The introduction is intended to convey general historical and cultural principles that apply to all courses.

The following topics will be covered:

• Social structure
• Religions: Christianity and Judaism
• Art styles basics
• Political development of the Habsburg monarchy: economy, industrialization, foreign and domestic policy, parties, and multi-ethnic state
• Vienna around 1900: population development, minorities, anti-Semitism, and female emancipation

Requirements: The course is a prerequisite for participation in the overall program, the hours count for the contact hours and the ECTS credits. At the end of the introduction participants are required to submit a written summary of one of the topics covered.

The course will not be graded, but submission of the written summary is a requirement to attend the following courses.

Society, Politics, and Daily Life in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

The course covers the period from the 1860s to 1918 in the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy, Vienna.

In the first part, the development of the Austro-Hungarian empire as well as the politics of the city of Vienna during this period (city expansion and improvement of infrastructure, administration of the city, political parties and their programs, etc.) are analyzed.

In the second part, the social system (dynasty, nobility, ennobled bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, workers, and outsiders) as well as the various ethnic and religious groups living within the city of Vienna are presented and discussed.

The third part centers on exemplary aspects of everyday life in its social differentiation, such as education, housing and nutrition.

Requirements: The grading is based on participation during class (20%), a short paper (40%) and the written final exam (essay type) (40%).

Design, Performance, and Media in Modern Vienna

Viennese Modernism is typically identified with Art Nouveau and Modernist architecture and design, as well as Black Romanticism and Expressionist art. Famous architects such as Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos designed interiors and fashion, collaborated with leading artists, and encouraged colleagues to create ceramics and children's toys to help shape a revolutionary culture that is crucial to understanding Viennese art and design around 1900.

This course explores the relationship between design, performance, and media in early twentieth-century Vienna. It examines how prominent and lesser-known figures such as the architect Otto Wagner, the designer Koloman Moser, the journalist Berta Zuckerkandl, and the dancer Grete Wiesenthal positioned themselves and developed their professional careers in the modern city of Hoffmann and Loos. How were their social and cultural identities formed in museums, theaters, coffeehouses, and private homes, and how did photographers contribute to their media presence? Our class will closely study their networks and works.

The course will include the following topics:

• Vienna's Ringstrasse: Building the Imperial Ringstrasse - Historical Visions as part of a European cultural project.
• "Modern People" and Urban scenery: the birth of mass media; new shopping and entertainment centers in the city.
• The Wiener Secession: Otto Wagner's railway stations and modernist buildings; Joseph Maria Olbrich and the Secession building; Gesamtkunstwerk (Total-Art-Work).
• Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte: Hoffmann’s villas; Sanatorium Purkersdorf; modern design and women's fashion; illustrious female and male patrons and how they lived.
• Women in the City: photographers, artists and designers; Women’s magazines in Vienna around 1900.
• Adolf Loos and his modernist architecture: Cultural criticism and liberal newspapers; te scandal of the "Loos House"; architecture and men's fashion
• Excursion "Rebellion in the Coffee House": the role of the coffee houses in shaping the culture of the modern city.
• Design and Orientalism: Japonisme, colonialist fantasies, art, and advertising
• Avant-Garde Performances: Grete Wiesenthal and modern dance, Richard Strauss and the Opera Salomé, and Oskar Kokoschka's expressionist drama

Requirements: Attendance and participation in class discussion constitute 30%, presentations 20%, and a written final paper 50% of the grade.

Society and Psychoanalysis in Sigmund Freud's Vienna

Around 1900, economic and social changes fostered deepening political and cultural conflicts. Emancipatory movements and mass phenomena demanded new approaches. Vienna was culturally highly complex and politically and socially divided. Religion and social conventions ceased to provide sufficient orientation. Mass movements and political demagogues characterized the public space.

Psychoanalysis offered new ways of dealing with actual problems and found its way not only into psychiatry, into art, literature, and music but also into the emerging social sciences and political analysis. This was a radical reaction against traditional views of the world.

Psychoanalysis would combine and elaborate developments that had been around since the 18th century. The scientific exploration of intimate emotions and of areas that were once taboo – like infantile sexuality or the profane foundation of religion and the functioning of propaganda – was considered scandalous, but nevertheless gained a wide notoriety and eventually revealed dimensions of human behavior and cultural life commonly denied or concealed.

In this course we want to combine a look at the history of human sciences with an exploration of developments in the fields of society, politics and culture.

The course will cover the following topics:

• The political and social situation of the late Habsburg Empire
• Jewish emancipation
• Labor movement and women’s rights movement
• The scientific background of psychoanalysis
• Foundations of creativity and artistic expression
• Understanding and enjoyment of literature, art and music.
• Mass psychology and (political) propaganda
• Political violence and war
• Sigmund Freud and his discoveries:
• (1911) Formulation on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning
• (1907) Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices
• (1907) Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming
• (1914) The Moses of Michelangelo
• (1915) Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
• (1921) Mass Psychology and Analysis of the Ego

Requirements: Attendance and participation in class discussion constitute 30%, small group discussion of reading-assignments and the presentations 30% and a written final exam 40% of the grade.

Art and Visual Culture at the Turn of the Century

“To the Time its Art. To Art its Freedom.”

The art course of the winter school will deal with the cultural and intellectual achievements of a number of prominent representatives from the fields of fine art and applied art. It is the aim of the course to provide a multifaceted picture of what happened at the time, when art slowly embarked on the project of Modernism. The course will draw a line from Historicism, the style prevailing in the second half of the 19th century, to Art Nouveau, the style of the young, and will end with an outlook on the Austrian type of Expressionism. All these phenomena and developments will be viewed in the wider context of European art and visual culture.

The following topics will be covered in the course:

• Historicism: Hans Makart, his impact on the life style and aestetic preferences of the Viennese bourgeoisie; his history paintings, portraiture, and interior design projects.
• Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) and its stylistic features. The Vienna Secession movement; its motto, artistic program, and most important shows.
• Gustav Klimt: The scandal caused by his university paintings, his iconic images, and their reception.
• The Vienna Workshop, its ideal of craftsmanship and the concept of the total work of art.
• Female painters of the time: Broncia Koller-Pinell, Olga Wiesinger-Florian; their limited access to art education, their status in a highly patriarchic society.
• Pictorialism: The aesthetic style prevailing in photography at the turn of the century. Madame d'Ora and her photo studio.
• The Viennese salons as places of networking and cultural exchange. Famous “influencers” of the time and their promotion of aesthetic trends.
• Austrian Expressionism: Egon Schiele; his anti-aestheticism as a slap in the face of the Viennese bourgeoisie.
• Oskar Kokoschka: rebel, assailant of bourgeois values (“Murderer Hope of Women”), as well as emphatic painter of psychic realities.
• Art Nouveau revival in the 60s. Turn of the century artists as soul mates of the Hippie generation.

Requirements: Attendance and participation (20% of the grade), reading (20%), project (20%) and final exam (40%).

Recommended Reading: A. Janik and S. Toulmin: Wittgenstein´s VIENNA. New York: Touchstone (1973); E.R. Kandel: The Age of Insight. New York: Random House (2012); C.E. Schorske: Fin-de-siècle Vienna. Politics and Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1980); K.A. Schröder: Egon Schiele. Eros and Passion. Munich and New York: Prestel Verlag (1995).