Andrew Barker,
whose work centres on the cultural history of Vienna
in the 19th and 20th centuries, is Professor of Austrian
Studies at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Research
Fellow in Austrian Culture and Literature at the Institute
for Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.
He is the biographer
of the eccentric but seminal Viennese poet Peter Altenberg
and with Leo Lensing (Wesleyan University) has co-edited
Altenberg's book Semmering 1912. This, though,
is a book with a difference: in 1916 Altenberg recast
it in visual form, constructing a private photo-album
composed entirely of visual images which recapitulate
the verbal original. The new edition presents both versions
side-by-side.
Other major
areas of interest are the interface of literature and
music, as well as Austro-German and Jewish cultural
relationships (a recent essay in The Modern Language
Review examines the Jewish central character in
Thomas Mann's story Tristan). Barker's long-standing
interest in the relationship between art and politics
in 20th Century Austria will see the publication of
a longer study on literature and society in the First
Republic, the period between the collapse of the Habsburg
Empire in 1918 and Hitler's annexation of his homeland
to Germany in 1938.
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