This course introduces key layers of the history of Vienna from the late 17th to the late 20th century. It brings to center stage the history of those social groups who, together, constituted the less privileged, disadvantaged majority of the population – ‘the many’: working and lower-class people, newly immigrating urban dwellers, women, and people minoritized with reference to ethnic or other belongings (ascribed to them). Important layers of the history of Vienna as history of the many can be captured by studying three large themes: the engagement of municipal authorities and other actors with daily needs and cultural desires of majority populations in a large and growing city; politics, practices, and experiences of difference and exclusion; social movements and everyday practices aimed at advancing needs and interests of the many.
During the weeks we spend together, we engage with historically relevant sites and artefacts across the city of Vienna, and discuss scholarly work and primary material to build our understanding of the large theme addressed in this course, and the competing memories and discourses on Vienna’s past and cityscapes. Students also develop an interactional understanding of ‘the city’, encounter-ing it as a lived experience and not simply as an object of study. Conventional as well as somewhat imaginative methods of interactive teaching and learning are used to achieve these learning out-comes.
- Instructor: Susan Zimmermann