Crime and Madness in Modern Austria: Myth, Metaphor and Cultural Realities
Editor: Rebecca S. Thomas
Date Of Publication: May 2008
Isbn13: 9781847185464
Isbn: 1-84718-546-0
This collection of essays explores the changing history, rhetoric, politics and representation of crime and madness in modern Austria. From the emergence of Viennese modernism to the post-modern moment, the myths, metaphors and realities of crime and madness have unfolded in the shadow of larger cultural questions regarding cultural norms, gender, war, and national identity. Historically based contributions illuminate such diverse cultural realities as the evolution of psychiatry as medical practice, asylum practices in the early twentieth century, and Austrian participation in and responses to terror and war crimes. From these investigations proceeds the clear insight that cultural responses to crime and madness are often steeped in mythmaking as much as objective policy and practice. Conversely, literary and metaphorical representations of crime and madness reveal attitudes and cultural realities about the Austrian society that produced them and which they reflect. Specialists from the fields of Austrian history, literature and culture studies have collaborated to produce this truly interdisciplinary volume, which responses to crime and madness are often steeped in mythmaking as much as objective policy and practice. Conversely, literary and metaphorical representations of crime and madness reveal attitudes and cultural realities about the Austrian society that produced them and which they reflect.

Rebecca S. Thomas (Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1992) is Associate Professor of German at Wake Forest University and member at large of the Executive Committee of the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association. Her research and publications focus on contemporary Austrian studies. In addition to Franz Kafka, she has published on numerous contemporary Austrian writers including Gerhard Roth, Elfriede Jelinek, Doron Rabinovici and Kathrin Röggla, and is currently translating Röggla's novel we never sleep [wir schlafen nicht] for Ariadne Press.

“Rebecca Thomas has assembled a highly competent group of twenty-two scholars to explore the themes of crime and madness in Austria as expressed in myth, metaphor, and cultural reality. This significant anthology is a multi-disciplinary, multi-perspectival compendium of salient approaches to the overriding topic and draws upon literature, art, music, film, history, sociology, psychology, medicine, law, and women’s and gender studies in presenting a collage of rewarding information. These individual scholars fill in critical elements of the large mosaic that this overarching topic incorporates. Concentrating on content and contexts emerging within Austria from the latter 19th century to the present day, the articles are grouped thematically under subheadings that Thomas nimbly outlines in her introduction. The volume offers anyone seriously interested in Austria and its culture or in comparative studies of the themes of crime and madness in diverse ramifications a fascinating and valuable resource that is undeniably relevant, highly informative, and intellectually enlightening.”

Paul F. Dvorak, Professor of German, Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia

“Crime and madness are not particular to Austria, of course, but Austria seems to be the small world in which the great one holds its rehearsals (Elfriede Jelinek, "The Forsaken Place," 2008). Crime and Madness in Modern Austria is an excellent scholarly volume on the discourse of experiences outside normality and beyond sanity, and on a large variety of artistic representations. The book's sixteen well-researched articles range from the second half of the 19th century and Fin-de-Siècle Vienna to WWII and the postwar era, and into the present time. Written by American and European scholars they offer a wide variety of thought-provoking discussions on Adalbert Stifter, Sigmund Freud, Robert Musil, and Alban Berg, Rosa Mayreder, Veza and Elias Canetti and contemporary writers such as Marlene Streeruwitz, Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard, and the filmmaker Michael Haneke. This book is a vast resource for scholars and for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Austrian, German and comparative literature seminars.”

Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger,

Professor of German, Lafayette College

The editor's clarity in organising a wide variety of material, much of it from a conference held in 2007 at Wake Forest University, is a distinct nsign of success...Any one essay could well grow into a book.

Vincent Kling, La Salle University.

Price Uk Gbp: 44.99
Price Us Usd: 67.99

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