Grete Meisel Hess

Grete Meisel-Hess (1879-1922), a contemporary of Freud, Schnitzler, and Klimt, was a feminist voice in early-twentieth-century modernist discourse. Born in Prague to Jewish parents and raised in Vienna, she became a literary presence with her 1902 novel Fanny Roth. Influenced by many of her contemporaries, she also criticized their notions of gender and sexuality. Relocating to Berlin, she continued to write fiction and began publishing on sexology and the women's movement. Helga Thorson's book combines a literary-cultural exploration of modernism in Vienna and Berlin with a biography of Meisel-Hess and a critical analysis of her works. Focusing on Meisel-Hess's negotiations of feminism, modernism, and Jewishness, it illustrates the dynamic interplay between gender, sexuality, and race/ethnicity in Austrian and German modernism. Analyzing Meisel-Hess's fiction as well as her sexological studies, Thorson argues that Meisel-Hess posited herself as both a "New Woman" and the writer of the "New Woman." The book draws on extensive archival research that uncovered a large number of new sources, including an unpublished drama and a variety of documents and letters scattered in collections across Europe. Until now there have been only limited secondary sources about Meisel-Hess, most containing errors and omissions regarding her biography. This is the first book on Meisel-Hess in English.

This volume, the first of its kind in English, brings together scholars from different disciplines who address the history of women in Austria, as well as their place in contemporary Austrian society, from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, thus shedding new light on contemporary Austria and in the context of its rich and complicated history.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Austro-Hungarian society was undergoing a significant re-evaluation of gender roles and identities. Debates on these issues revealed deep anxieties within the multi-ethnic empire that did not resolve themselves with its dissolution in 1918. The concepts of gender and modernity were modified by the various regimes that ruled the empire's successor states in the twentieth century and have been redefined again in the post-Communist period, but the Habsburg Monarchy's influence on gender and modernity in Central Europe is still palpable. With a truly interdisciplinary approach ù drawing on the fields of women's studies, gender studies, sociology, history, literature, art, and psychoanalysis ùthat touches on gender roles, sexual identities, misogyny, painting, writing, minorities ù this volume explores the lasting impact of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in contemporary Central Europe, which is fraught with gender conflict and tension between modernist and anti-modernist forces.

The organized women's movement in Austria-Hungary became increasingly important with the rise of modernism and feminist concerns ranging from women's legal and political rights, access to education, professional opportunities, economic independence, and sexual freedom found expression in print. Agatha Schwartz analyses the connections between the women's movements and women's writing in Austria and Hungary to explore some differences between works written in Austria and those coming from Hungary, whose urban culture was younger. She provides critiques of major works of fiction and theory by authors such as Rosa Mayreder, Grete Meisel-Hess, Margit Kaffka and Szikra.

The phrase fin de siècle conjures up images of artistic experimentation and political decadence. The contributors to this volume argue that Wilhelmine Germany—best known for its industrial and military muscle—also shared these traits. Their essays look back to the years between 1885 and 1914 to find in Germany a mixture of sociopolitical malaise and experimental exhilaration that was similar in many ways to the better-known cases of France and Austria. Revising the view that the German Second Reich was merely a precursor to the Third, this broad-scoped study presents pre–World War I Germany in its own fascinating and often contradictory terms. The foundations of the antiliberal passions that would plague the Weimar Republic are evident, but Wilhelmine society also had a lighter, more playful and moderate spirit, one that was largely extinguished by the Great War. Blending social, cultural, and intellectual history, the contributors—a distinguished cross-section of older and younger scholars—trace changing German views on liberalism, penal reform, race, women, art, popular culture, and technology. They juxtapose better-known figures such as Max Weber, Thomas Mann, and Martin Heidegger with now-forgotten individuals like the Jewish feminist novelist Grete Meisel-Hess and the iconoclastic Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. Their essay topics range from the esoteric and erotic poetry of Stefan George to the Jewish comedy of the Herrnfeld Theater. “Modernity” is examined from the perspectives of bourgeois cinema-goers and judicial reformers, as well as from the viewpoint of Carl Jung. The result is a variegated picture of an unsettled world, rich in its innovations, ambitious in its undertakings, and often apocalyptic in its dreams.

The organized women's movement in Austria-Hungary became increasingly important with the rise of modernism and feminist concerns ranging from women's legal and political rights, access to education, professional opportunities, economic independence, and sexual freedom found expression in print. Agatha Schwartz analyses the connections between the women's movements and women's writing in Austria and Hungary to explore some differences between works written in Austria and those coming from Hungary, whose urban culture was younger. She provides critiques of major works of fiction and theory by authors such as Rosa Mayreder, Grete Meisel-Hess, Margit Kaffka and Szikra.

Ansichten der Natur ist Humboldts erstes größeres Werk und auch sein erfolgreichstes. Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) war ein deutscher Naturforscher mit weit über die Grenzen Europas hinausreichendem Wirkungsfeld. In seinem über einen Zeitraum von mehr als sieben Jahrzehnten sich entfaltenden Gesamtwerk schuf er "einen neuen Wissens- und Reflexionsstand des Wissens von der Welt" und wurde zum Mitbegründer der Geographie als empirischer Wissenschaft. Inhaltsübersicht: Vorrede zur ersten Ausgabe Vorrede zur zweiten und dritten Ausgabe Über die Steppen und Wüsten Über die Wasserfälle des Orinoco bei Atures und Maipures Das nächtliche Tierleben im Urwalde Ideen zu einer Physiognomik der Gewächse Über den Bau und die Wirkungsart der Vulkane in den verschiedenen Erdstrichen Die Lebenskraft oder der modische Genius. Eine Erzählung Das Hochland von Caxamarca, der alten Residenzstadt des Inka Atahualpa. Erster Anblick der Südsee von dem Rücken der Andeskette

"Previous scholarly attention to Hapsburg culture has emphasized its German-centred aspects, Shifting Voices introduces a new focus on the Hapsburg Empire's rich Hungarian component through a comparative: analysis of women's literary contributions in Austria and a Hungary." --Résumé de l'éditeur.