Vienna: Birthplace of Psychoanalysis, Modernism, and WWI

PIIRS Global Seminar 2022

Overview

Before 1918, Austria-Hungary was a world power that spread from the Mediterranean to Ukraine, and Vienna was one of the world’s capitals of art, culture, and intellectual life. Along with Paris, London, and Berlin, Vienna was a leading site for modernist innovation in fields as diverse as architecture (Adolf Loos), music (Arnold Schoenberg), painting (Gustav Klimt), and literature (Stefan Zweig). Most remarkably, Vienna was the birthplace of psychoanalysis and the urban space where Sigmund Freud lived and worked. By the end of World War I, Austria-Hungary had imploded and the country was dismembered: the new Austrian Republic was a tiny fraction of the Empire and it had to reinvent its identity as a small, landlocked nation. Economic and political crises during the 1920s and 1930s paved the way for what Freud called “the end of Austria” – the Anschluß, or annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938, when the country became the German province of Ostmark until the allies liberated it in 1945. 

This seminar offered 12 students an introduction to Viennese culture and history around the time of World War I by focusing on Freud’s work and on his relationship to modern culture, including literature, arts, architecture, and politics. Classes were held at the Freud Museum, in the very apartment where Freud lived and worked for over thirty years, but also involved numerous outings connected to twentieth-century Austrian history. Visits to the opera, the national theater, museums, the Imperial palace, and even a weekend trip to the neighboring city of Salzburg enabled students to experience a wide range of Viennese traditions. 

The seminar featured weekly guest speakers who gave lectures on topics as diverse as Vienna's architectural development, the place of psychoanalysis in today’s world, and the transformation of Austria from a world power into a small landlocked nation that often has thought of itself as a new Switzerland – a neutral country and a buffer between East and West.

In addition to the seminar meetings, students attended a German language course that complemented the content of the seminar with conversational tools.

For the final project, students completed a research paper focused on a site of their choosing pertaining to Austria's history. The papers spanned a wide range of topics, representing the many facets and stages of Austrian cultural evolution.


Seminar Description

This seminar offered an introduction to Viennese culture and history, from the late 19 th  century to World War I. Our discussions focused on Sigmund Freud’s work and on his relationship to modern culture, including literature, art and politics. 

Vienna: Birthplace of Psychoanalysis, Modernism and World War I

The Fish Benoist Family Global Seminar

June - July 2022

 Sigmund Freud Museum , Vienna, Austria

Professor:  Rubén Gallo , Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., Professor in Language, Literature and Civilization of Spain

This seminar offered an introduction to Viennese culture and history around the time of World War I by focusing on Freud’s work and on his relationship to modern culture, including literature, art and politics. Meetings took place at the Freud Museum, in the very apartment where Freud lived and worked for over thirty years, as well as in museums and archives connected to twentieth-century Austrian history. Students explored the cultural history of psychoanalysis and its relation to Austrian history, and the seminar featured weekly guest speakers on topics such as the history of communism in Vienna, the place of psychoanalysis in today’s world, and the transformation of Austria from a world power into a small landlocked nation that often has thought of itself as a new Switzerland — a neutral country and a buffer between East and West. 

As part of the seminar, each student selected a site in Vienna to research during the six weeks we spent in Austria. This website collects the research projects developed by the Global Seminar students. 


Research Projects

Click titles to view papers

Elena Every -  Stadttempel 

Nicholas Rath -  Heldenplatz 


Project Map


Photos


Participants

  • Sebastian Aguilar '25
  • Yonatan Ambrosio '24
  • Misha Bilokur '25
  • Jordan Bowman-Davis '24
  • Aaron Dantzler '25
  • Penelope Effron '25
  • Elena Every '25
  • Gordon Helmers '25
  • Greta Herrington '25
  • Max Peel '25
  • Elizabeth Polubinski '25
  • Nicholas Rath '25

Participants, as ordered above left to right

Vienna: Birthplace of Psychoanalysis, Modernism, and WWI

Website by Jordan Bowman-Davis '24