Papers in this volume will reflect on the ways in which nostalgia for an imagined “Habsburg world” informs and shapes Austrian literature, culture and art as well as Austrian national identity. In the wake of Austro-fascism and Nazism, Austrians have often turned to an idealized vision of a multi-cultural Habsburg. Nostalgia, as Svetlana Boym has argued, is an “historical emotion,” one that is predicated on forgetting. Nostalgia for the Habsburg Empire reflects a celebration of the Empire simultaneously as a creative, multi-ethnic mosaic and as a global power, and this view of history reveals a desire to view “Austrianness” as both grander and more inclusive than the territory that defines the boundaries and limits of contemporary Austria. Habsburg revivalism and postmodern citations of "Habsburg culture" litter contemporary Vienna and the literary and artistic works emerging from the capital city. Yet Habsburg nostalgia already appears in literature produced in the final years of the dual monarchy, predating Austro-fascism and World War II. The inevitable process of modernization leading to the crystallization of the nation-state model contributed to a longing for what has been perceived as the grander days of Empire. Habsburg nostalgia may also reflect the desire to highlight an Austrian history distinct from German history.

Paper proposals on the following and related topics (ca. 500 words) are welcome:

- works in literature, the arts, and cinema that cite the Habsburg Empire nostalgically or ironically

- literature, art or films reflecting the last days of the Empire

- heritage or historicist literature, art or film

- Habsburg nostalgia in former Habsburg territories

- works that reflect monarchist fantasies

- Habsburg “kitsch”

- modern-day Vienna and the role of the Habsburgs in the tourism industry

- queer appropriations of Habsburg history

Please send proposals to Heidi Schlipphacke (hschlipp@odu.edu) by October 10, 2012. Essays will be due to me by June 1, 2013.