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Literature group Vienna
The working process of the Viennese tandem group has been documented in a Power Point and a PDF version
“VECU Literature Vienna” in Power Point
“VECU Literature Vienna” in PDF
As a first step we chose five books which - in our opinion – are at the same time representative of the Austrian literature after 1945 and also demonstrate European values.
The following books were chosen:
Marleene Streeruwitz: Verführungen
Anna Mitgutsch: Zwei Leben und ein Tag
Erich Hackl: Abschied von Sidonie
Felix Mitterer: Die Piefke-Saga
It soon became clear to us that we must include young people if we want to find out whether “reading” is still an essential part of youth culture and whether we “older ones” can make a contribution to it.
We discussed with young people from a Vienna high school and distributed questionnaires to two schools asking them “WHAT” and “WHY” they are reading. We also asked the grown-up participants to our project the same questions.
The quantitative analysis showed a surprisingly similar result when comparing young people and grown-ups.
Regarding the present status of children’s literature and literature for young people we made enquiries with experts of relevant institutions, with libraries and publishing companies.
Temporary result: In spite of the new media reading is still firmly established in children’s and youth’ culture, however, it depends from encouraging reading already in the nursery schools and elementary schools and also from the general education policy of the country. Literature of each epoch reflects the moral concepts of the society. The generation of the grandparents has the chance to foster the transmission of such concepts to their grandchildren by telling them fairy tales and reading to them when they are still small children.
Herta Spitaler, Gerti Zupanich and the Viennese team
Further steps of the project will follow…….