Page - 16 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

16 siting futurity intended to support my study’s goals. I also share Claire Bishop’s not unrelated skepticism about the “‘the world is my oyster’ ap- proach, in which authors attempt to gain an omniscient over- view of practice globally” (Bishop qtd. in Eschenburg 2014, 177). Moreover, just as Boltanski and Chiapello hoped “that future work, with a similar methodological approach, will make it pos- sible to enrich a fine-grained vision of the way in which, under the impact of local variables, new constraints have been estab- lished that local economic and political actors can, in all good faith, have a sense of being subjected to from without, as if they were forces that it was difficult — even impossible — for them to oppose” (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007, xxi–xxii), it is my ardent hope to initiate a discussion that demonstrates the importance of humanities-based academic work for the sustenance of equi- table societies worth fleeing to and that helps to make available further material for countering the political forces gaining mo- mentum that are bent on turning those societies into exclusive, hierarchized places of masters and servants. Special Thanks It is very important to me that this book is appearing with punc- tum books, an independent, open-access publisher that prides itself on operating in the same radical spirit as the material I deal with here, and I am very grateful to Vincent and his team for the great expertise and care with which they made this vol- ume a reality. Because its point is to offer an updating of what is known about Vienna in English on the basis of little known, and often hard to access, material, the original German has al- ways been included together with an accompanying translation, which unless otherwise indicated, is mine. Most of the chapters are based on material presented at conferences that was later expanded on for publication. My heartfelt thanks also goes to all the organizers that made these sessions and projects possible. Without the important feedback I received during these pro- cesses, my work would not have taken on whatever nuance it has. How this core material has been refocused and developed