WS/LT 351 - The Woman as Writer and Perspective in Austrian Literature after 1945

Austrian literature over the centuries has been dominated by men – with few notable exceptions such as Hrosvit v. Gandersheim, Marie Frf. v. Ebner-Eschenbach, Paula v. Preradovic, Bertha v. Suttner. After WW II, there is an increase of female women writers not only in numbers, but in importance. Since 1945, female authors in Austria have successfully tried to break free from the limitations women were subject to in earlier times, so successful in fact that they have become leading figures in the shaping and defining of Austrian literature as a whole.

This course tries to explain the phenomenon of women in Austrian literature since 1945. It comprises the full scope of female thought from the ever present ”Vergangenheitsbewältigung” to radical feminist views on society and social interaction in the seventies and eighties, and on to recent novels concerning new problems of the female in a changing society, such as raising children as single mothers, or dealing with migration in Europe. It will also deal with the problem of changing one’s sex, and check whether a male perspective on female life bears validity.