Page - 30 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

30 siting futurity learning and culture that emerged from Europe at the onset of modernity, Austria and the Viennese have for all intents and purposes dropped off the Anglo-American map except insofar as they are associated with bundles of clichés around the trium- virate of fin de siècle, city of music, and fascism. The interna- tional press’s fascination with outbursts of right-wing populism frustrates many progressive Austrians (Rauscher 2018), some- thing I can relate to as a Canadian whose country also tends to end up in international headlines when something scandal- worthy happens. As a scholar of Comparative Literature, one of the most paradigmatically interdisciplinary of disciplines whose practitioners are often viewed as dilettantes by those who spe- cialize in a narrow discipline, such as a national literature, I can also relate to the frustration of Austrian Studies specialists such as Katherine Arens, who has complained vociferously about, and devoted an admirable career to overcoming, the “scholarly imperialism” among American Germanists as far as Austria is concerned.12 One manifestation she gives as an example is the failure of her attempt to change the name of their division in the MLA to “germanophone literatures and cultures.” It remains “German literatures and cultures” so that “Robert Burns gets to be from Scotland, not the U.K., but Kafka and Hofmannsthal still remain ‘German’ in MLA programs” (Arens 2016, 223).13 12 That the academic barriers to studying and researching topics on Vienna and Austria in German Studies are as “ongoing and real” (Arens 2016, 223) as the very limited nature of the anglophone press coverage of these places can be seen in recent, most welcome German Studies’ interest in topics related to social justice in the form of the Envisioning Social Justice in Contemporary German Culture volume, edited by Jill E. Twark and Axel Hildebrandt. However, despite the fact that the editors refer to “the German-speaking authors, filmmakers, artists and musicians discussed in this volume” (Twark and Hildebrandt 2015, 3), their declared aim is to explore how these works “promote an understanding of how Germany as a European country is currently wrestling with its socioeconomic, political and cultural issues” (ibid., 5; italics added). No Austrian cultural workers are discussed, and there are a mere half-dozen references to “Austria” and “Austrian” in the volume. 13 I consider myself most fortunate in being able to have made a career in North American academia without ever having officially attended or