The array of themes and disciplines displayed in this volume mirrors two fundamental features of intellectual life at the Institute für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna – its multidisciplinary orientation and its international makeup.
The contributions of Paulo Pinto, Bogdan Barbu, Natascha Vittorelli, Adam Lipszyc, Katharina Pewny and Slavomir Krekovic, fellows of the IWM and nearly all participants of the Junior Fellows’ Conference held at the IWM in June of 2002, involve history, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, and gender studies, to name a few. They cover regions that extend from Syria to Slovakia, and include a variety of subject matters – from the symbolic cultural presence of the West in Romania during the Cold War to the quest for tranquility in the contemporary age of disquietude.
