Botstiber Foundation

Claudette McCarron

BIAAS: Journal of Austrian-American History, Vol. 4, 2020

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BIAAS is excited to announce Volume 4 of the Journal of Austrian-American History, which includes “Austrian Children and Youth Fleeing Nazi Austria,” a special series guest-edited by Jacqueline Vansant.

Articles by Thomas Riegler, Günter Bischof, João Fábio Bertonha, Kirsten Krick-Aigner, Swen Steinberg, and Tim Corbett demonstrate the tremendous scope and depth that academic research can attain within BIAAS’s transatlantic mission. 

The Journal of Austrian-American History is an open access, peer-reviewed journal sponsored by BIAAS.

To learn more, visit the JSTOR website.

 

 

BIAAS: November 23, 2021 Newsletter

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New Podcast:
Ruth Weiss: Poet, Performer, Grand Dame of the Beat Generation with Thomas Antonic

BIAAS’s latest podcast presents BIAAS grantee Thomas Antonic, whose film about Austrian-American Beat poet Ruth Weiss, One More Step West Is the Sea, recently won “Best International Documentary Feature” in the New York Independent Cinema 2021 Awards.

Born in Berlin in 1928 to Austrian Jewish parents, Ruth Weiss grew up in Vienna in the 1930s. Via a harrowing escape, the Weiss family fled soon after the Anschluss and migrated to the United States, settling first in Harlem, then Chicago. When she was in her early 20s, ruth recited a poem while accompanied by jazz musicians. Thus, in 1949, hers was the first “Jazz & Poetry” performance. Taking this novel form with her, she hitchhiked–years before On the Road was published–to San Francisco, where she eventually befriended many Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Bob Kaufman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Spicer, and, later, female Beat poets such as Anne Waldman, Joanne Kyger, and Diane di Prima. Under-acknowledged for much of her artistic life, she was a legend in West Coast California and became celebrated in Austria in her later years. She died on July 31, 2020, at the age of 92. 

To learn more, listen to the Podcast or visit the BIAAS website.

 

Vienna in Hollywood Symposium
The Influence and Impact of Austrians on the Hollywood Film Industry, 1920s-2020s 

December 10 – 11, 2021
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures & University of Southern California Libraries

This long-awaited symposium is dedicated to the large and underappreciated presence of Austrian film professionals who have shaped and continue to influence American and global filmmaking today. Panels will be held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and at the University of Southern California, with a film series at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Organized by The Academy Museum, USC Libraries, USC Max Kade Institute, with support from the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles, BIAAS is pleased to provide funding for this event.

To learn more, visit the Academy Museum website.

BIAAS: BIAAS Appoints Kevin McNamara as New Managing Director

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Kevin J. McNamara, an experienced non-profit executive, author and editor, and an Associate Scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Philadelphia, will assume his new duties at the Botstiber Institute on November 1, 2021. The Institute is an arm of the Botstiber Foundation, a non-profit philanthropy based in Media, PA.

“Kevin McNamara is poised to make a meaningful contribution to the future of the Institute,” said Terrance Kline, Administrator of the Botstiber Foundation.  “He has record of leadership, and a deep commitment to academic research.  We are delighted to have him on board as managing director.”

McNamara launched his non-profit career as Assistant Director of FPRI and contributing editor of its journal of world affairs, Orbis, both in 1988.  He later served nearly two decades at Drexel University, starting as Associate Vice President for Corporate and Foundation Relations in 1998 and concluding his tenure as Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives this year.  In between, he served four years as Vice President for Development & Marketing at Independence Seaport Museum.

To learn more, visit the BIAAS website.

BIAAS: Blog by Kristina E. Poznan

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BIAAS Austro-Americana Blog Series

Unterweger’s Signature Knot: The “Austrian Jack the Ripper’s” Murder Spree in the Vienna Woods and the Hollywood Hills

Just in time for Halloween, BIAAS’s latest blog is a horrifying tale about a transatlantic serial killer. Johann “Jack” Unterweger, aka the “Vienna Strangler,” was once championed by Elfriede Jelinek and Günter Grass despite his conviction for the murder of a young woman. His writings during his 15-year imprisonment (short stories, poems, a memoir, and more) suggested he had reformed. After his release, his newfound career as a journalist facilitated travel and access that would result in the murder of 11 more women.

To learn more, visit the BIAAS website.

BIAAS: Podcast – Say Hello to “Auf Wiedersehen, Kinder!” and Ernst Papanek with Lilly Maier

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Podcast with Lilly Maier

BIAAS’s latest podcast presents Lilly Maier whose recent biography of Ernst Papanek, Auf Wiedersehen, Kinder!: Ernst Papanek. Revolutionär, Reformpädagoge und Retter jüdischer Kinder, explores the remarkable life of the Viennese-born socialist and educator.  Already in exile from Austria, Papanek became the director of four homes in France for Jewish refugee children fleeing the Nazis in 1938. Influenced by the Austrian School Reform ideologies of the Social Democrats during “Red Vienna,” his approaches to these children’s education and psychological well-being were thoroughly innovative.

When he and his family had to escape France, they immigrated to New York. Papanek worked on rescue efforts with NGOs and people like Eleanor Roosevelt via an American Kindertransport to save the refugee children left in France from the Holocaust. Later, as the Director for the Wiltwyck School for Boys in New York, he would repeat his earlier approaches with the Jewish refugee children in France with the young population there. As for his Austrian Social Democratic roots, he transplanted them in his new home which become known as “Little Vienna,” hosting Bruno Kreisky, Franz Jonas, Bruno Pittermann and Hans Mandl whenever they came to New York.

About Presenter:

Lilly Maier is a historian and author. Her most recent book, Auf Wiedersehen, Kinder!: Ernst Papanek. Revolutionär, Reformpädagoge und Retter jüdischer Kinder, (2021) is published by Molden/Styria. In 2018, she published Arthur und Lilly, the biography of a Holocaust survivor who – as a boy in the 1930s – used to live in the same Viennese apartment as Maier in the 1990s. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Munich. Her dissertation project, “If you only knew what it would cost me to leave Rivesaltes” – Between rescue and self-help: Jewish rescuers in France during the Shoah, compares biographies of Jewish women who supported or rescued Jews in France to counter the preponderance of work on male rescuers.

To learn more, visit the BIAAS website.