Our extended intellectual journey into the field of comparative imagology, which started on a hot summer afternoon in Vienna in 2017, would not have been possible without the support, inspiration, and advice of fellow travellers, travel guides, travelling acquaintances, and funding agencies. We are grateful to the many colleagues and friends who shared their perspectives on imagology with us, fuelled our intellectual adventure with their critical questions, and brightened our spirits through their cheerful and pleasant company. We also wish to express our thanks to our families, who have had more conversations about imagology than they might have wished, who have supported and believed in our project, despite the inconveniences of an overworked partner and the additional household or childcare duties it caused for them at times.
We are grateful to Andrea Kreuter and Sophie Mayr, who co-organized the conference on New Perspectives on Imagology (April 3–5, 2018) with us, and who have a great share in making our journey such a joyous and amicable, often funny collaborative endeavour since the start. Unfortunately, they had to leave our editing team due to other professional obligations. Although Andrea could not edit this book with us, we would like to thank her for her input in the initial conception of the volume and for her collaboration on an early version of our introduction. Sophie left us right after the conference, yet her ideas about intermedial approaches to imagology have inspired part 5 (Imagology Intermedial: Beyond the Literary Text) of this volume, for which we would like to thank her.
We would also like to express our thanks to the Vienna Doctoral Academy: Theory and Methodology in the Humanities; the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna; the City Administration of Vienna, Municipal Department 7 – Culture; and The Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) for funding the conference preceding this volume. Furthermore, we are grateful to our cooperation partners, The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art (Volkskundemuseum)—for providing us with their premises and expertise—as well as to the Arbeitskreis Kulturanalyse (AKA), Leschanz – Wiener Schokolade König, and PANNOBILE. In addition, Gianna would like to thank the European Union for funding her research through the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie-Actions programme.1
Publishing this book in Open Access was made possible by the generous funding of the Austrian Science Fund FWF (PUB 846-G). Here we would like to thank Doris Haslinger and Sabina Abdel-Kader in particular, who provided us with very competent advice before, during, and after the submission of our manuscript. A big thank you also goes to the anonymous reviewer who evaluated our manuscript for the FWF.
And last but not least, our warmest thanks go to all authors who have contributed to this volume. Thanks for your hard work, perseverance, and trust!
Katharina Edtstadler, Sandra Folie and Gianna Zocco
Vienna and Berlin, July 2021
Project: Of Awful Connections, East German Primitives and the New Black Berlin Wall: Germany and German History in African American Literature (GAAL), Individual Fellowship, Grant Agreement No. 786281.