Vienna: Crossroads of Empire
Vienna: Crossroads of Empire
Director: Julie Allen
Fall 2025
From its beginnings as a Celtic village, then a Roman military outpost, a medieval trading center, and the capital of first the Austro-Hungarian Empire and finally the nation-state of Austria, the city of Vienna has been shaped, both physically and culturally, by the many ethnic and linguistic groups that have crossed through, invaded, and settled the area. This program will focus on how these waves of migration, from the Turkish sieges of Vienna in the 16th and 17th centuries through the recent Syrian and Ukrainian refugee crises, have impacted the city on multiple levels. We will examine the tangible traces of migration in visual arts, including visual arts, architecture, film, and food traditions (including croissants and coffee), alongside analyzing narratives of migration in multiethnic Austrian literature. Students will get to know the city’s layers of historical and cultural complexity through city walks, museum visits, cooking classes, and excursions to culturally significant sites, as well as through German language classes and possibly volunteer work with local refugee resettlement organizations. In order to understand more about the cultures that contributed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, our group will take overnight trips to Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Salzburg and Hallstatt, as well as a week-long trip to Slovenia and Croatia.
