Transnational Literature: Austria and the Beat Generation

The primary aim of this project is to investigate the under-researched transnational intersections and connections between writers of the American Beat Generation and Austrian literature. By making these connections visible, an important and essential contribution of basic research can be made in several disciplines. Because of the high relevance of these transnational links, which had far-reaching impact on the literary field. especially in Austria after 1960, the project reveals and addresses a significant gap in knowledge of the literary life after 1945. The project can provide scholarship with a radical and necessary reinterpretation of the works of several Austrian writers as Ernst Jandl, Wolfgang Bauer, Elfriede Jelinek, and many others. The Schule für Dichtung in Vienna (Vienna Poetry School) also plays an important role in the project due to the invitation of Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, and many other poets to teach at the school since 1992. In addition contacts with Austrian literature and culture also play an important role in the works of certain Beat writers such as William S. Burroughs and ruth weiss. Analyses which focus on these transnational aspects can deliver crucial understanding of the works of the writers in question. As traces of such links are not only to be found on a textual level, extratextual references should be taken in account as well. For many authors personal encounters were of considerable importance, not only for their own works, but also for their theoretical and technical developments. Thus, a transnational study, with a focus on sociological and (inter)textual analysis,, can be extremely revealing for the understanding of Austrian post-1945 literature and the works of Beat writers, as well as for transnational literary transfers in general. The examination of international contexts of national literatures and the study of transnational relations in experimental and avant-garde literature are emerging fields. Therefore the project is in line with recent developments and clearly timely. Moreover, by identifying, accessing and evaluating archival documents, and by interviewing protagonists and testimonies and making their accounts available as new material for the academia, the knowledge of literary and cultural relations between the United States and Austria after World War II can be increased and enhanced considerably.

The FWF project Transnational Literature: Austria and the Beat Generation can be considered as highly successful. Individual, partial results were published in a monograph as well as in several high ranked academic journals and edited essay collections a nd presented at international conferences. Individual tasks were implemented and produced far more significant findings than expected when the application was submitted. For instance, intensive archival research on William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37 and meticulous analyses of the writers works led to an unexpected quantity of new findings and the publication of the monograph Amongst Nazis: William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37. Among the other publications is an essay of Burroughs study of Wilhelm Reichs life and work, academic studies that deal with the history of reception of the Beat movement in Austria from 1958 onwards, and points of contact between the US Beats and the Wiener Gruppe (Vienna Group), Ernst Jandl, Walter Buchebner, Rolf Schwendter and his Informelle Gruppe (Informal Group), Wolfgang Bauer, Gunter Falk, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, Gerhard Roth, and others. The conference Beats and Politics: Past and Present, which was organized by the project leader and his assistant in cooperation with the Schule für Dichtung and the European Beat Studies Network (EBSN) 2018 in Vienna, can also be regarded as a great success. Over four days, around 60 researchers from four continents gave lectures on project-related topics. In addition, poet and performer Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), German Beat veteran Jürgen Ploog, as well as Austrian authors of a younger generation were invited to readings, performances, and artist talks. Also noteworthy is the extremely extensive research on the Austr ian-American Beat poet ruth weiss that included the examination of her vast private archive and personal interviews with the poet, totaling over 40 hours. A special issue of the magazine Flugschrift on ruth weiss (2018), for which project leader Thomas Antonic was invited as a guest editor, includes the reprint of previously unpublished Haiku Paintings by ruth weiss and a recording of a Jazz & Poetry performance by the poet in Oakland in 2017 on a CD specially produced by Antonic. The essay collection ruth weiss: Beat Poetry, Jazz, Art on the works of the poet, co-edited with Estbaliz Encarnacin Pinedo and including 12 academic analysis as well as homages by fellow poets, will be published by deGruyter in late 2021. Other important tasks are currently in progress and will be accomplished in the follow-up project The Transnational Beat Generation in Austria (2), which was granted in November 2020.