Andrew Barker awarded Austrian Cross of Honour for his Contribution to Austrian Studies

Tuesday 23 February 2021

Professor Andrew Barker has been awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and the Arts* by the Austrian government. The award recognises his lifetime service to Austrian Studies, in particular the impact it has made and the attention that it has received outside Austria.

Andrew Barker completed his first degree and doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, where in 1973 he was appointed Lecturer in German, and Professor of Austrian Studies in 1998. The title of Emeritus Professor was conferred upon him on his retirement in 2010. In 1988 he was invited as Visiting Professor of German at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and in 2016 was appointed to an Honorary Professorship at Bangor University. His association with the Institute of Germanic Studies, and thereafter the Institute of Modern Languages Research, dates to 2003 when he was appointed Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Austrian Literature and Culture, and where he has since been an Associate Fellow. He gave the third Ingeborg Bachmann Centre Lecture on 14 January 2010 on 'Politics and History in "Post-War" Austrian Fiction' focusing on Bruno Brehm's trilogy Die Throne stürzen and Heimito von Doderer's novel Die Dämonen.  He has served on the Advisory Board of the journal Austrian Studies (Edinburgh University Press) from 1989 to 1999, and of its successor Austrian Studies, New Series (MHRA) since 2001.

Professor Barker’s research has centred on Austrian literature and culture, the cultural history of Vienna in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Austro-German and Jewish cultural relationships. He has been the recipient of grants from prestigious funding bodies such as the Fulbright Commission, the Carnegie Trust, the Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Vienna, and the Jüdisches Museum, Vienna. His publications include the 415-page biography of Peter Altenberg, one of the main proponents of Viennese Impressionism and part of the literary and artistic movement Jung-Wien, entitled Telegrammstil der Seele (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998), Fictions from an Orphan State. Literary Reflections of Austria between Habsburg and Hitler (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2013), and Telegrams from the Soul. Peter Altenberg and the Culture of the Viennese Fin de Siècle (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1996).

*Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst