Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society Organization Logo Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

Symposium

The Formation of Fin de Siècle Vienna

05.13.2021

Event Summary

Vienna City Hall circa 1885. Via Wikimedia Commons.

How does a city—while weathering an economic crash, public health crises, and burgeoning political populism—develop the capacity to tackle the greatest social challenges of its time? The Formation of Fin de Siècle Vienna project looks for answers in turn-of-the-20th-century Austria, which contemporaries described as a “little world in which the big one holds its tryouts.” The project mobilizes new archival materials from the City of Vienna’s administrative library to reconstruct the city administration’s evolution from the emperor’s executor to an autonomous actor and behemoth of social welfare. Using natural language processing methods, the research team is exploring the organizational dynamics that unfolded during a time of cultural critique, tumultuous urbanization, and political polarization that ultimately enabled the rise of Red Vienna. Participants at this event will look at these materials as a way of considering cities’ capacity to act, with commentary on the contexts of Imperial Austria, Renaissance Florence, and Ancient Greece.

Agenda

9:30 AM

Introduction

Luís Bettencourt, Pritzker Director, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation; Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Biological Sciences Division (University of Chicago)

Christof Brandtner, Assistant Professor (emlyon Business School) and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Sociology and at the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation (University of Chicago)


9:35 AM

Setting the Stage of Fin de Siècle Austria

John Boyer, Dean of the College; Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of History (University of Chicago)


10:05 AM

A Computational Grounded Theory of Capacity to Act in Fin de Siècle Vienna

Christof Brandtner, Assistant Professor (emlyon Business School) and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Sociology and at the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation (University of Chicago)

Renate E. Meyer, Professor of Organization Studies, Head of the Institute for Organization Studies, and Co-director of the Research Institute for Urban Management and Governance, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Martin Kornberger, Chair in Strategy and International Management, University of Edinburgh Business School (University of Edinburgh)


10:50 AM

Discussion

John Padgett, Professor in the Department of Political Science (University of Chicago)

Luís Bettencourt, Pritzker Director, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation; Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Biological Sciences Division (University of Chicago)


This event is supported by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, and the City of Vienna. Free and open to the public. Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate should contact the Neubauer Collegium at collegium@uchicago.edu.