Special Film Screening "About a Village: Children of the High Woods"

Screening and discussion with director John Swanson, professor, department of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Tuesday, March 12
7:00 PM
Room 710 Social Sciences Building



The Center for Austrian Studies will host producer, writer and director John Swanson, whose film About a Village: Children of the High Woods, examines the meaning of home.




Where is one's true home? For Elsa Koch and her circle of friends this question is more complicated than for most of us. Born in a German-speaking village in southern Hungary, they were forced to leave after the Second World War, still children. Although they eventually succeeded in building their lives in post-war Germany, the transition was not easy. Having been expelled from Hungary as Germans--a measure sanctioned by the Allies in 1945--they were regarded as outsiders in Germany as well, often referred to as 'Hungarian Gypsies.'
They had to suddenly become adults when they did not yet feel ready for it. No wonder that the small Hungarian village keeps occupying a special place in their hearts. They yearn for the uncomplicated world of their childhoods, where their lives were mapped out by the village streets and nothing could penetrate their sphere of joy and playfulness, not even the cruelties of war and politics. Is that world gone forever or have they managed to hold onto it throughout the past six decades? Is it in fact a physical place or more of an inner landscape?
About a Village: Trailer
Sponsored by: Austrian Studies, European Studies Consortium, Institute for Global Studies, Immigration History Research Center.

Candidates for Director of Center for Austrian Studies to Present

Candidates for Director of CAS

Center for Austrian Studies is conducting a search for a new director and has invited four finalists to campus. Each candidate will give a presentation on their current research and a talk outlining their vision for the future of the Center. Dates, times, and locations are listed on the CAS website.

All members of the university community and the public are welcome.

From Harlem to Hoamatlond/the Alps. Hip Hop, Malcolm X and Islamic Activism in Austria

A Lecture by Farid Hafez
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
4:00 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences Building



Professor Hafez's talk will touch upon the issue of how Austrian Muslim youth found their way through Hip Hop and Malcolm X to Islam and how they gave Islam a "Western" meaning, shaping a distinctive Western Muslim-identity.

Farid Hafez is currently working as a researcher at the Department for the Philosophy of Law, Law of Religion, and Culture at the University of Vienna, and lectures at the Department for Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Muslim organizations in Austria, the role of Islamophobia in Austrian party politics and on the Islamic Council in Austria within the Austrian political systems.



Hafez was awarded with the Bruno-Kreisky-Price for the political book of the year in 2009 (together with John Bunzl) for their anthology "Islamophobia in Austria."
For more information please contact the Center for Austrian Studies.
Sponsored by Center for Austrian Studies, European Studies Consortium and The Institiute for Global Studies.