HERTA & KURT BLAUKOPF DOSSIER
Music Sociology As Collective Action:
The research partnership of Herta and Kurt Blaukopf
The project Music Sociology as Collective Action: The research partnership of Herta and Kurt Blaukopf strives to examine the collaborative scholarly efforts of Herta Blaukopf (1924 – 2005) and Kurt Blaukopf (1914 – 1999). The idea for the project first arose in 2019 with the establishment of the “Herta and Kurt Blaukopf Award” – a prize intended to celebrate exceptional dissertations at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, that was named in honour of the two scholars. Being considered an ideal starting point, the research project commenced with a thorough screening of the Kurt Blaukopf Archive, which is located at the mdw’s Department of Music Sociology and contains a vast collection of documents pertaining to Blaukopf’s life, career and family history. However, right from the beginning, the project also focused on the scientific accomplishments and scholarly contributions of Herta Blaukopf (née Singer), who worked independently as well as together with her husband. Realising that Herta’s achievements proved difficult to reconstruct and that, contrary to her husband, traces of her intellectual life were by no means systematically collected and preserved, the project team decided to utilise gender as a pivotal analytical category. Relying on a theoretical framework provided by sociological as well as transdisciplinary research into couples and relationships, we examine how Herta and Kurt Blaukopf performed gender and class as interdependent categories and how they negotiated power asymmetries in the context of their time. Furthermore, the project addresses topics such as antisemitism, persecution, Jewish identity in the post-WW-II-era as well as the life and music of Gustav Mahler – one of many shared research interests of Herta and Kurt Blaukopf. Current results and insights have been derived from extensive archival research and the analysis of qualitative interviews with people from the couple’s private and professional social networks.
Project lead: Rosa Reitsamer (2020 – 2023), Sarah Chaker (since 2020), Golan Gur (since 2024)
Team: Raphaela Viehböck (since 2020), Mona Torinek (library research), Mira Perusich (transcription of interviews)
Website design: Raphaela Viehböck
Funding: Gender|Queer|Diversity-Call_mdw 2020, Rectorate (mdw), Department of Music Sociology (mdw)
Project period: 2020 – 2024
Publications & Presentations
Chaker, Sarah/Viehböck, Raphaela: Herta und Kurt Blaukopf: Leben und Arbeiten in Symbiose. Presentation given at the award ceremony for the Herta and Kurt Blaukopf Award 2022 for outstanding dissertations at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, 8 June 2022.
Chaker, Sarah/Viehböck, Raphaela: „Hertalein, ich muss dich da was fragen…“. Aktuelle Archiv- und Interviewbefunde zur Wissenschaftskooperation des Ehepaares Herta und Kurt Blaukopf, presentation given at the symposium (Wahl)Verwandtschaften. Gemeinschaftliches kulturelles Handeln of the research centre Musik und Gender Hannover, University of Music, Drama and Media Hannover, 9 July 2022.
Chaker, Sarah/Viehböck, Raphaela: „Miteinander gearbeitet haben wir, seit wir einander kannten“. Zur wissenschaftlichen Partner*innenschaft von Herta und Kurt Blaukopf, in: Fornoff-Petrowski, Christine/Bagge, Maren/Ricke, Anna/Rode-Breymann, Susanne (Hg.): (Wahl-)Verwandtschaften: Gemeinschaftliches kulturelles Handeln. Böhlau Verlag (forthcoming).
Reitsamer, Rosa: Presentation given at the first award ceremony for the Herta and Kurt Blaukopf Award for outstanding dissertations at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, 16 December 2019.
Reitsamer, Rosa/Chaker, Sarah: Music Sociology as Collective Action: Die wissenschaftliche Partner*innenschaft von Herta und Kurt Blaukopf. Grant application for the Gender|Queer|Diversity-Call_mdw 2020, handed in June 2020 (approved September 2020).