Center Austria is proud to announce the public presentations of our 2015/16 Research Fellows:
Hester Margreiter (University of Innsbruck) and
Vera Kropf (Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna)
When: Wednersday, February 17, 3:00 pm
Where: IC Seminar Room, International Center
Mag. Hester Margreiter: Tourism and Urban Dynamics. Structural Effects of Emerging Mass Tourism in New Orleans (Louisiana) and Innsbruck (Tyrol)
Mag. Vera Kropf: The Agent with the Typewriter: Tracing Ilse Lichtblau Lahn (1902-1992) in the Émigré Community of Mid-20th-Century Hollywood
Hester Margreiter grew up in the Tyrolean Alps. She studied history and economics in Innsbruck and Vienna. Her master thesis discussed additional income strategies of executioners in Austria and Germany in early modern times. She participated in scientific field trips and study visits to Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Poland and Romania), Central America (Cuba, Venezuela) and the United States (New Orleans). Her focus on the economic and social history of common people led to her dissertation project about the impact of tourism on local populations. Her main research interests are living and working conditions, infrastructure, social and cultural change. She started her PhD project in late 2015 and is currently working as Nick Mueller Research Fellow at the Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies, UNO.
Vera Kropf was born and raised in Vienna, studied Theater, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna and graduated with a thesis on the history of sound recording and 1930s avant-garde experiments with optical sound. As a key researcher in the WWTF project “Digital Formalism” she worked on the analysis of visual rhythm in the films of Dziga Vertov. Ongoing musical activities as a songwriter, guitarist and singer based in Vienna and Berlin include the recording of two albums, persistent touring, and a couple of smaller releases with her bands Luise Pop and Half Girl. In 2015 she started a PhD project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which she is now pursuing as a Research Fellow at the Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies, UNO.
