Die transnationale Beat Generation in Österreich (2)

THE TRANSNATIONAL BEAT GENERATION IN AUSTRIA (2)
ABSTRACT
Wider research context / theoretical framework

In recent years a transnational turn in research on the Beat Generation emerged. As a result, studies on the reception of Beat literature outside the USA were intensified. The movement ceased to be regarded as a purely US-American phenomenon and is instead perceived as a global one by now. As a location for
literature in the Beat context, Austria has not yet been researched in this respect.

The project thus bridges
a significant gap in several areas (transnational German/Austrian studies and American studies, Beat studies) and also integrates disciplines such as gender, theatre, and exile studies.

Hypotheses/research questions /objectives
The connections between the Beat Generation and Austria are manifold. This includes the reception of Austrian literature and culture in general by US Beat authors, personal contacts, their time spent in Austria, as well as the reception of Beats in Austrian literature. The project examines intertextual references,
appropriation of themes, forms, processes and modes of presentation as well as biographical points of contact (including archival research, interviews and text analyses). On the Austrian side, the corpus includes internationally renowned authors such as Elfriede Jelinek, Wolfgang Bauer and Peter Handke as
well as representatives of the neo-avant-garde (e.g. Oswald Wiener, Gunter Falk), the main protagonists of the Vienna Schule für Dichtung and authors of a younger generation. On the part of US Beats, the spectrum ranges from key figures such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs to less well-known ones. Central to the project are also the life and work of the Austro-American Beat poet ruth weiss.

Approach/methods
The primary aim of the project is to continue the work carried out within the project “Transnational Literature: Austria and the Beat Generation” and to present a comprehensive monograph, which on the one hand condenses the results of biographical and text-analytical research into case studies, and on the other hand provides a bibliography that spans several decades as an empirical basis of sources for various research questions, especially those concerning transfer mechanisms and transnational networks between USAmerican and Austrian literature since the late 1950s.

Level of originality/innovation
In the field of German/Austrian studies as well as in the field of (transnational) Beat studies, this project breaks completely new ground and, compared to similar studies covering other geographical areas, is internationally on the cutting edge. The applied methods and the inclusion of trans- and postnational
theories will create a pool of knowledge and data that will make a significant contribution to basic research in the above-mentioned disciplines.

Primary researchers involved
Project leader: Dr. Thomas Antonic