Empire, Socialism and Jews IV: The Interwar Years

April 24 – 26, 2016

Ahmadieh Family Conference Hall (Room 240), John Hope Franklin Center

Duke University

“Empire, Socialism & Jews” represents an ongoing project aiming to reconceptualize the Austrian Empire’s place in Central European history and to write the Empire back into the Austrian national narrative. The project tracks the interaction between the Austrian imperial legacy, socialism and European Jewry. This workshop, the fourth in a series, focuses on the interwar period (1918 – 1939).  Participants will discuss the manifestations of the imperial legacy in Red Vienna, the Austrian provinces and borderlands, and the successor states to Austria-Hungary.  They will focus on the traces of the Monarchy in Austrian Socialist discourse and Austrian national identity, and on imperial nostalgia in Central European literary life, especially among Jewish writers.