Austria’s contribution to modern German-language literature has been both rich and varied, embracing major novelists (Kafka, Musil, Zweig), dramatists (Schnitzler, Bernhard, Jelinek), as well as poets (Rilke, Celan, Bachmann) of international repute.
The Ingeborg Bachmann Centre, established at the then Institute of Germanic Studies in 2002 with the support of the Erste Bank, the Österreichische Nationalbank, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and the Österreich Kooperation, explores this contribution by means of a varied programme of events. The IBC supports and hosts collaborative and transnational conferences and events in the field of Austrian Studies and seeks to further cultural exchange between Austria and the UK by promoting the work of authors and translators.
The IBC takes as its figurehead Ingeborg Bachmann, whose poem ‘Abschied von England’ encapsulates the challenge presented by other cultures and the difficulties of comprehending them.
All events are open to anyone interested.
The Centre is indebted to the Austrian Cultural Forum in London and the Bithell Bequest Fund (University of London) for their continued sponsorship.
Ingeborg Bachmann Centre Director Appointed
Tuesday 9 January 2018
The Institute is delighted to announce that Andrea Capovilla has been appointed as Director of the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture at the IMLR.
Dr Capovilla read German, History and Philosophy at the University of Vienna, graduating with an MA dissertation entitled ‘Irmgard Keuns Romane im Kontext der Neuen Sachlichkeit’. Her doctoral thesis, Der lebendige Schatten. Film in der Literatur bis 1938 was published by Böhlau in 1994.
She has held posts at the Universities of Vienna, Oxford and Cambridge. Her areas of particular interest are in 20th-century and contemporary Austrian, German, Swiss and Anglophone literature, film, gender studies, and Jewish studies. Her book Entwürfe weiblicher Identität in der Moderne (Igel Verlag, 2004) analyses the network of cultural exchanges between Vicki Baum, Milena Jesenská, Gina Kaus, and Alice Rühle-Gerstel in Vienna, Berlin, Prague, and in exile. She has written for the Wiener Zeitung and Falter.
Dr Capovilla takes up her post on 15 January 2018.
