Michael Rössner

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Michael Rössner (born August 28, 1953 in Vienna ) is an Austrian cultural scientist , Romance scholar and translator who deals with the relationship between center and periphery as well as hybrid cultural spaces. He has translated works by the Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello into German and published his complete works.

Scientific career

After completing his degree in translation and law , Michael Rössner received his doctorate in Romance philology sub auspiciis at the University of Vienna in 1979 with a study on the Italian Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello ( Pirandello Mythenstürzer , Vienna 1980). His romance habilitation thesis was devoted to myth research ( In search of the lost paradise , Frankfurt 1988).

After years as an assistant, lecturer and assistant professor in Vienna, Rössner was appointed to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1991, where he held a chair for Romance philology until his retirement at the end of the 2018/19 winter semester . Together with the English scholar Ulrich Broich, he was responsible for the literature workshop at the Munich Graduate School Post-colonial studies . As a visiting professor he was a. a. at universities in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Porto Alegre (Brazil), Querétaro (Mexico), Concepción (Chile) and regularly at the universities of Salzburg , Innsbruck and Vienna .

As part of the research program “Boundless Austria”, he headed the research project “Literary Coffee Houses - Coffee House Literature” from 1994 to 1996 .

Between 1997 and 2001 Rössner published the collected works of Luigi Pirandello in German (16 volumes), for which he made use of the existing translations and transferred the not yet translated works by Pirandello into German. This complete edition concludes with a Pirandello biography written by Rössner. He is the chairman of the European Pirandello Center. For his services to Italian culture, he was awarded the second highest Italian state order "Grande Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana" in 2003 and the "Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana" in the order class "Grande Ufficiale" in 2005, Italy's highest honor for foreigners Citizens, dear.

Three editions of the standard work on Latin American History of Literature , edited by him, have been published by Verlag Metzler , Stuttgart.

Michael Rössner has been a corresponding member since 2001 and a full member of the philosophical-historical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) since 2009 . Since 2009 he has been director of the Institute for Cultural Studies and Theater History of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Research priorities

Rössner received a critical methodological pluralism from his teacher Hans Hinterhäuser . The Konstanz school of reception aesthetics , the principles of which are also based on Juan Ruiz Arcipreste de Hita (14th century), then set the trend. Rössner is one of the first to complete the “ anthropological turn ” in her literary and cultural studies research in Europe . His research interest in the peripheral places of cultural production, for living culture away from the center, is already evident in an anthology on Tango Argentino and literature and the large coffee house project. The comparison of 18 coffeehouse cities in Europe and Latin America shows the coffeehouse as a hybrid place par excellence, it is both a place of literary production and literature exchange, as well as a space of privileged reception.

“Edges and Centers” is the name of a European research project currently (2009) prepared by Michael Rössner, which takes up approaches from post-colonial studies and connects them with findings from the “translational turn”. The concept of translation is taken into account, since this central process of every culture should also be discussed more within the EU. Questions of the globalization of culture / s will also be dealt with.

In terms of content, Michael Rössner also dealt with Renaissance and Baroque literature and the literature of the avant-garde and the early 20th century. He has also worked on comedy, bucolic poetry and Latin American text music (especially the Argentine tango). His theoretical and methodological interest is in post-structural approaches, especially post-colonial and translation studies . His research does not want to contribute to a sterile self-talk of theory. With his work he wants to lead to the texts, develop instruments for reading pleasure and convey “plaisir du texte”.

useful information

During his studies, Rössner took acting lessons from the legendary actress and resistance fighter Dorothea Neff ( Theater in der Josefstadt , Vienna). In 1981 his novel Captivity or Freedom the Negation of Freedom was published , inspired by the kidnapping of the Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro . During a study visit to Buenos Aires he met the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges , with whom he was friends until his death in 1986.

Publications (selection)

as an author
as editor
  • “IBailá! iVení! iVolá! “El fenómeno tanguero y la literatura. (Actas del Simposio “Tango literatura” de Berlin). Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 978-3-89354-579-7 .
  • Latin American literary history. 3rd edition Metzler, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-02224-0 .
  • Literary coffee houses. Coffeehouse literary figures. On the production and reception of literature in coffee houses in Europe and Latin America between 1890 and 1950. Böhlau, Cologne 1999, ISBN 978-3-205-98630-0 .
  • Pirandello e l'identità europea, Pesaro 2008. Editio Metauro, Pesaro 2008, ISBN 978-88-6156-041-3 (together with Fausto de Michele ).
  • Theatricalization of the reality and reality of the theater. Files from the 3rd Pirandello Symposium in Vienna 1986. Aachen 1988. Romanistischer Verlag, Bonn 1988, ISBN 3-924888-34-5 (together with Frank-Rutger Hausmann ).
  • Center and periphery. Pirandello between Sicily, Italy and Europe / Centro e periferia. Pirandello tra Sicilia, Italia ed Europe. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-503-07979-7 (together with Thomas Klinkert ).
  • Translatio / n. Narration, Media and the Staging of Differences. transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2012. ISBN 978-3-8376-2114-3 (together with Federico Italiano ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Farewell lecture by Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Rössner. In: www.sprach-und-literaturwissenschaften.uni-muenchen.de. February 5, 2019, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  2. ↑ QUIRINALE: IN ORDINE ALFABETICO, I TRECENTO INSIGNITI. In: www.ilsegnalibro.com. June 7, 2005, accessed February 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Rössner, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Romanist
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna