Sissis World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth (New Directions in German Studies)

by HeidiSchlipphacke (Author), Maura E . Hametz (Author), Maura E . Hametzand Heidi Schlipphacke (Editor)

New
Illustrated
2018
$211.12

Sissi's World offers a transdisciplinary approach to the study of the Habsburg Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It investigates the myths, legends, and representations across literature, art, film, and other media of one of the most popular, revered, and misunderstood female figures in European cultural history. Sissi's World explores the cultural foundations for the endurance of the Sissi legends and the continuing fascination with the beautiful empress: a Bavarian duchess born in 1837, the longest-serving Austrian empress, and the queen of Hungary who died in 1898 at the hands of a crazed anarchist. Despite the continuing fascination with the beloved Sissi, the Habsburg empress, her impact, and legacy have received scant attention from scholars. This collection will go beyond the popular biographical accounts, recountings of her mythic beauty, and scattered studies of her well-known eccentricities to offer transdisciplinary cultural perspectives across art, film, fashion, history, literature, and media.

Synopsis

Sissi's World offers a transdisciplinary approach to the study of the Habsburg Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It investigates the myths, legends, and representations across literature, art, film, and other media of one of the most popular, revered, and misunderstood female figures in European cultural history. Sissi's World explores the cultural foundations for the endurance of the Sissi legends and the continuing fascination with the beautiful empress: a Bavarian duchess born in 1837, the longest-serving Austrian empress, and the queen of Hungary who died in 1898 at the hands of a crazed anarchist. Despite the continuing fascination with the beloved Sissi, the Habsburg empress, her impact, and legacy have received scant attention from scholars. This collection will go beyond the popular biographical accounts, recountings of her mythic beauty, and scattered studies of her well-known eccentricities to offer transdisciplinary cultural perspectives across art, film, fashion, history, literature, and media.

$211.12

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 240
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 12 Jul 2018
ISBN 10: 1501313444
ISBN 13: 9781501313448
Book Overview: Explores the cultural resonance of the iconic Empress Elisabeth of Austria, one of the most popular, revered, and misunderstood female figures in European cultural history.

Media Reviews

From Trieste to Beijing, these riveting essays analyze the highly situational character of our obsessions with the restless Empress. From her renowned hair and waist to the rigid control she exercised over her public image, these essays show how Elisabeth's imagined personality has served us as a screen for a surprising range of fantasies, from 1950s femininity to the contemporary queer and subversive. * Pieter M. Judson, Chair, Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Italy *
Empress Elisabeth of Austria embodied the contradictions of monarchical rule in life and death. Revered yet deeply unhappy; a figure of national imagination yet profoundly rootless; bathed in splendor yet bodily starved. Despite or perhaps because of that incongruity, she remains a projection screen of imperial longing, reminding us of inextricable links between history, memory, and nostalgia in the realm of the former Habsburg Monarchy. Sissi's World grapples in novel ways with the complex tensions reflected in the figure of Empress Elisabeth. * Matti Bunzl, Director, Museen der Stadt Wien, Austria *
This remarkable collection of essays on the memory and myth of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, known as Sissi, is a long-awaited compendium of research and contextualization that ranges far beyond the popular hagiography to offer wholly fresh analysis of the subject as a complex woman, enlightened royal, and uniquely enduring and influential cultural icon. Editors Maura Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke have drawn together international scholars, transdisciplinary aspects, and diverse critical approaches for a superbly executed expansion of literature on Elisabeth - as she was in her world and as she continues to find resonance in ours. Sissi's World is essential reading that will inspire serious investigation on the subject for some time to come. * Robert Dassanowsky, President Emeritus of the Austrian Studies Association and Professor of German and Visual and Performing Arts, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA *

Author Bio

Maura E. Hametz is Professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Her research explores the history of Trieste and the northeastern Adriatic regions since the late 19th century with emphasis on the intersections of politics, culture, economy, law, religion, gender, and ethnicity and nationalism. Her major works include In the Name of Italy (2012) and Making Trieste Italian, 1918-1954 (2005), and she co-edited Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe, 1860-2000 (2012). Heidi Schlipphacke is Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. Her research focuses on the German Enlightenment and its critique, kinship and family structures, post-war German and Austrian literature and film, and queer and gender studies. She is the author of Nostalgia After Nazism: History, Home and Affect in German and Austrian Literature and Film (2010).