Austrian Identity and Modernity: Culture and Politics in the 20th Century

Bringing together an interdisciplinary cast of scholars, this volume explores national and nationalist identification(s) in Austria, as they were represented through culture and design, in response to the political environment in the first half of the 20th century. Austrian Identity and Modernity addresses the processes of evolution, conflict, destruction, and critical reassembling of interrelated Austrian cultures. It discusses:
- The transformation of liberal ideologies, scientific leadership, technology and social inclusion
- How professional women shaped alternative collectives, art and design movements
- Socialist cultural projects and national unity
- The Catholic Church and politics
- Antisemitism and memory culture in context
- Political shifts and modern architecture and music
- Migration, remigration and pluralism in Austrian culture
Divided into four chronological parts, the book surveys the period from the late-19th century through to the post-WWII era. It serves to offer up innovative approaches to the concepts of nation and nationalism, as well as ground-breaking research on the roles played by regionalism, Europeanism, and migration in culture, design and the shaping of Austrian identities.

Elana Shapira is a design and cultural historian and lecturer at the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria. She is the editor of Designing Transformation: Jews and Cultural Identity in Central European Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2021) and co-editor of Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2017).