Past Kann Memorial Lectures

The Robert A. Kann Memorial Lecture has been a central fixture for Habsburg scholarship since 1984. The list of past speakers and the titles of their respective talks are listed below. More recent Kann Memorial Lectures have been recorded and posted on the Center's Youtube channel. See the links attached below:

2023: Christina Lutter, Professor of History, University of Vienna, "Gendering Late Medieval Dynastic Politics: Maximilian I and his Social Networks." 

2022: John Connelly, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of European History, University of California, Berkeley, "Was the Habsburg Empire and Empire?" 

2021: Nancy Wingfield, Presidential Research Professor, Department of History, Northern Illinois University, "Democracy's Violent Birth: The Czech Legionnaires and Statue Wars in the First Czechoslovak Republic" 

2020: Tara Zahra, Homer J. Livingston Professor of East European History and the College, Department of History, University of Chicago, "Against the World: The Collapse of Empire and the Deglobalization of Interwar Austria"

2019: Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Professor of History and Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, "Maria Theresa and the Love of her Subjects"

2018: Larry Wolff, "Operatic Representations of Habsburg Ideology: Ottoman Themes and Viennese Variations"

2017: Franz A.J. Szabo, "The Dynamic of Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy during the 18th Century: Cameralism, Josephism, and Enlightenment"

2016: Pieter Judson, "Where Our Commonality Is Necessary: Rethinking the End of the Habsburg Monarchy"

2015: Patrick Geary, "Austria, the Writing of History, and the Search for European Identity"

2014: James Tracy, "Habsburg-Ottoman Wars, 1526–1606: A Clash of Civilizations"

2013: Gary Cohen, “Cultural Crossings in Prague, 1900: Scenes from Late Imperial Austria”

2012: Nora Berend, “Violence as Identity: Christians and Muslims in Hungary in the Medieval and Early Modern Period”

2011: Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, "Representation, Replication, Reproduction: The Legacy of Charles V in Rulers' Portraits in the Holy Roman Empire"

2010: Arnold Suppan, "The Nazi Occupation Policies in Bohemia and Serbia: A Comparison"

2009: David S. Luft, "Austrian Intellectual History before the Liberal Era: Grillparzer, Stifter and Bolzano"

2008: Siegfried Beer, "A Second Chance: Allied Attitudes and Reconstruction Policies in post-World War II Austria"

2007: Mary Gluck, "Jewish Humor and Popular Culture in Fin-de-siècle Budapest"

2006: Herwig Wolfram, "Austria before Austria: The Medieval Past of Polities to Come"

2005: John-Paul Himka, "A Central European Diaspora under the Shadow of World War II: The Galician Ukrainians in North America"

2004: Ernst Bruckmüller, "Late Nineteenth-Century Habsburg Society: Was there One?"

2003: R. J. W. Evans, "Language and State Building: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy"

2002: John W. Boyer, "Silent War and Bitter Peace: The Revolution of 1918 in Austria"

2001: Anton Pelinka, "Austrian Exceptionalism"

2000: Erika Weinzierl, "The Jewish Middle Class in Vienna in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries"

1999: Dennison Rusinow, "The 'National Question' Revisited: Reflections on the State of the Art"

1997: Ernst Wangermann, "'By and By We Shall Have an Enlightened Populace': Moral Optimism and the Fine Arts in Late-Eighteenth-Century Austria"

1996: Paul Schroeder, "Making a Necessity of Virtue: The Smaller State as Intermediary Body"

1995: Allan Janik, "Vienna 1900 Revisited: Paradigms and Problems"

1994: Egon Schwarz, "Mass Emigration and Intellectual Exile from National Socialism: The Austrian Case"

1993: Helmut Konrad, "Austria on the Path to Western Europe: The Political Culture of the Second Republic"

1992: István Deák, "Chivalry, Gentlemanly Honor, and Virtuous Ladies in Austria-Hungary"

1991: Grete Klingenstein, "Modes of Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Politics"

1990: Barbara Jelavich, "Clouded Image: Critical Perceptions of the Habsburg Empire in 1914"

1989: Gerald Stourzh, "The Multinational Empire Revisited: Reflections on Late Imperial Austria"

1988: Henry A. Grunwald, "Austria: The Sound of which Music?"

1987: Rudolf Kirschläger, "Politics and Statesmanship: An Austrian View"

1986: Peter J. Loewenberg, "Karl Renner and the Politics of Accommodation: Moderation versus Revenge"

1985: Bruno Kreisky, "Some Unconventional Remarks on History"

1984: Carl E. Schorske, "Grace and the Word: Austria's Two Cultures and Their Modern Fate"