The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies
Wolfgang Petritsch, Head of Permanent Delegation from Austria to the OECD, spoke on “The US and Europe in a Changing Global Context – The View from Austria” at the Fourth Annual Botstiber Lecture on Austrian-American Affairs at the Austrian Embassy, Washington, D.C. on June 8, 2012. Hear the lecture.
Dietrich Botstiber witnessed the most unsettling times in modern Austrian history. In his memoirs, he describes the difficult social and economic conditions in Austria from the time of the breakup of the Dual Hapsburg Empire to the 1938 Anschluss. He left Austria for the United States in 1938. He was grateful to become an American but at the same time Botstiber believed that Americans did not fully appreciate the Austrian predicament leading up to World War II. One of Botstiber’s objectives in establishing his Foundation was to “promote an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria.”
To that end, the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS) supports projects that implement Botstiber’s mission. BIAAS and the Austrian-American Educational Commission jointly sponsor two Fulbright-Botstiber visiting professorships, one in Austria and the other in the United States. BIAAS offers an annual fellowship in Austrian-American Studies, and it provides grants for work, and sponsors programs, in the field of history, politics, economics, law, literature, poetry, music and translations.
Inaugural Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professors Announced
The Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation and the Austrian-American Educational Commission jointly established two Fulbright-Bostiber Visiting Professors of Austrian-American Studies.
During the 2012/13 program year, Prof. Primus Kucher (Germanistik/Klagenfurt) will be hosted by the University of Vermont as the initial Austrian recipient of this award to the U.S. At UVM, he will teach a seminar in Austrian literature and engage in bilateral research on the reception of American modernism in Austria and Austrian modernism in the U.S. during the interwar period.
Prof. Katherine Baber (Music/University of the Redlands), the first U.S. grantee to Austria under the auspices of these awards, will be teaching a seminar on Leonard Bernstein at the University of Vienna and a survey course on American Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in addition to doing archival research on Bernstein’s association with Vienna.
Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professors
Learn more about:
- Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professors of Austrian-American Studies in Austria and the United States
- The Botstiber Fellowship
- BIAAS Grants for the Study of Austrian-American History
- BIAAS Programs
For more information, contact:
Carlie Numi
Deputy Administrator
The Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation
P.O. Box 1819
Media, PA 19063
–Photo by Karl Schrammel