Austria and Other Margins: Reading Culture

In this book Katherine Arens offers a series of case studies that redefine what 'reading culture' can mean in literary and cultural studies. The first part traces the ways in which authors borrow and rewrite literary traditions across national lines, in order to address problems in their own cultures' histories. In the second set of essays, Professor Arens illustrates how literature can cross other kinds of cultural boundaries, especially those between disciplines; for example, plotting a story as if it were on a stage allows Grillparzer to tell two simultaneous stories at odds with each other; and two artists interested in large-group art (Christo and Judy Chicago) manipulate their images as modernists to achieve different careers.