In this episode of If Passports Could Talk, we journey through five decades of cultural exchange and international education with Lonnie R. Johnson. Lonnie R. Johnson was born in 1952 and grew up in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. As a humanities major as St. John’s University in Minnesota, a small Benedictine men’s liberal arts college, he was encouraged by an Austrian professor of German to go to Vienna to “see the real thing,” and he spent his senior year of college on a junior-year-abroad program in Vienna, 1973-74. This marked the beginning of an improbable but accomplished fifty-year career on the Austrian-American interfaces of international higher education, academic exchange, and research.

His book Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends (Oxford University Press, 1996, 3rd revised and expanded edition, 2010) is widely acknowledged as a standard work for students interested in the region. His previous books include Introducing Austria (Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna, 1985; Ariadne Press, Riverside, CA, 1987) and with Inge Lehne, Vienna: The Past in the Present, (Riverside: Ariadne Press, 1995: 2nd revised edition of the Austrian 1st edition (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1985)).

This episode is a tribute to the intellectual wanderer—and to the power of cultural diplomacy done quietly, persistently, and well.

https://www.amazon.com/Central-Europe-Enemies-Neighbors-Friends/dp/0195100719?ref_=ast_author_dp

How did hydropower shape Austria’s modern history? In our latest episode, we dive into Mountain Battery: The Alps, Water, and Power in the Fossil Fuel Age (2025) with its author, Marc Landry. From the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy to the rise of National Socialism and post-WWII reconstruction under the Marshall Plan, the story of hydropower—often called "white coal"—intersects with key moments in Austrian history.

Marc Landry serves as Marshall Plan Endowed Professor in Austrian Studies and Director of Center Austria at the University of New Orleans. Landry was the Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professor in Austrian-American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, in 2016.

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You can find Mountain Battery: The Alps, Water, and Power in the Fossil Fuel Age (2025), here: https://www.sup.org/books/history/mountain-battery

Learn more about Marc Landry's work at the Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies at the University of New Orleans: https://www.centeraustria.org/

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Who we are: The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS) promotes an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria, including the lands of the former Habsburg empire, by awarding grants and fellowships, organizing lectures and conferences, and publishing the Journal of Austrian-American History. We engage with a broader public audience through digital programming, including videos, podcasts and blog posts.

For more information go to https://www.botstiberbiaas.org or follow us on our various social media accounts!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/botstiberinstitute

X: https://www.twitter.com/BotstiberBIAAS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BotstiberBIAAS

Auf Wiedersehen! / Until next time!

Join us as we travel to the festive, snowy alps and explore how locals and visitors alike ring in the New Year. In this video, Austrians and Americans share their personal memories and traditions—feasting on raclette or goulash, sipping sparkling wine, watching the annual broadcast of “Dinner for One,” and gathering outdoors to admire fireworks and enjoy a midnight waltz. Discover the heartfelt stories and cherished rituals that define an Austrian New Year (German: "Silvester"), connecting past and present, family and friends, as the old year gracefully gives way to the new.

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Thank you to our interviewees who made this video possible: Max, Leandra, Johanna, Christian, Philipp, Constanze, Kara, Mel, Lilly, Adrienne, Xavier, Bernhard, and Julia!

In this episode, we are joined by Judith Eiblmayr, a distinguished Austrian architect and insightful writer on the history and evolution of architecture.

Our conversation highlights the extraordinary life and legacy of Elizabeth Scheu-Close, a trailblazing Austrian-American architect. Born in 1912 Vienna, Elizabeth—often known as Lisl—was exposed to some of the most influential thinkers and creatives of her time, inspiring her early passion for architecture.

Despite the challenges of entering a field largely dominated by men, she pursued her dream with determination. Her journey led her to the United States, where she earned a degree from MIT in Boston and later established herself professionally in Philadelphia. In 1938, she and her husband, Win Close, founded the firm Close and Scheu Architects, through which she contributed to numerous significant projects, including Ferguson Hall at the University of Minnesota.

Elizabeth Scheu-Close is celebrated today as one of the most important figures in modern Austrian-American architecture.

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Find more from our guest, Judith Eiblmayr: https://www.eiblmayr.at/de/

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Intro and Outro Music: https://archive.org/details/lp_franz-lehars-the-merry-widow_dorothy-kirsten-robert-rounseville-the-mer

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Who we are: The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies (BIAAS) promotes an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria, including the lands of the former Habsburg empire, by awarding grants and fellowships, organizing lectures and conferences, and publishing the Journal of Austrian-American History. We engage with a broader public audience through digital programming, including videos, podcasts and blog posts.

For more information go to https://www.botstiberbiaas.org or follow us on our various social media accounts!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/botstiberinstitute

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/BotstiberBIAAS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BotstiberBIAAS

Auf Wiedersehen! / Until next time!

In this episode of The Botstiber Podcast, host Luke Morgante sits down with Megan Brandow-Faller, a professor of history at the City University of New York - Kingsborough, to discuss her forthcoming book.

"Child Creativity in the Visual Arts: From Secessionist Vienna to Postwar America," will trace the origins of Franz Cižek's ideas on child creativity and examines how these ideas migrated across the Atlantic, further developed by educators such as Emmy Zweybrück and Viktor Lowenfeld.

Keep an eye out, the book will be published with Bloomsbury Academic in 2025!

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Intro/Outro Music: https://musopen.org/music/2326-scenes-from-childhood-op-15/

In this special podcast episode presented by the Botstiber Institute, we hear stories of adventures from the life of Eduard Medinger. As a teenager in 1860s Austria, Eduard was full of eager anticipation to experience the world beyond his home in Central Europe.

In part one of two, we are introduced to the young man and his bold plan to reach the distant shores of Yokohama, Japan beginning in the imperial capital, Vienna. What he expects to be a straightforward journey across the continents to Asia, becomes a much different, challenging adventure filled with eccentric characters, new destinations, and 19th century criminals.

Stay tuned for part two, coming soon!

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Eduard Medinger's personal letters and diaries were provided by his great grandson, Gregor Medinger, to make this special possible. Gregor Medinger also provides narration throughout the episode.

After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a newly independent Austria sought fresh business ventures to aid the reconstruction process and its battered economy. In this episode, guest Andrew Behrendt of the Missouri University of Science and Technology joins host Luke Morgante to discuss the emergence of tourism as a salve to Austria's financial woes, and why American tourists were so highly coveted despite their low numbers.

Follow along to hear about the ways Austrian tourism promoters propagandized to Americans overseas, how the arrival of tourists affected local culture, and the changing modes in which Austrians and Americans perceived each other during the 1920s and 1930s.

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If you would like to find more from Andrew Behrendt and his work, click the links below:

- Missouri University of Science and Technology Profile

- Historical Representation in Video Games

This reading comes from Chapter One of Deitrich W. Botstiber's 2007 autobiography, "Not On The Mayflower."

Dietrich Botstiber was born in 1912 in Vienna, Austria, during the final years of the Habsburg monarchy when the country flourished with abundant natural resources and high culture. In his memoirs, Botstiber writes about his life in Austria during the first part of the twentieth century, and describes an Austria of great beauty and bounty that, over those years, diminished in size, culture, wealth and prestige, due in large part to the breakup of the Habsburg Dual-Monarchy, the 1938 Anschluss and the ensuing war. Botstiber witnessed the most unsettling times in Austrian history, but in Chapter One he poignantly recounts the innocence of his own youth in 1931 when he was 18.

On September 29, 1995, Dietrich Botstiber penned his name to a trust that would be the governing document for the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation. In the trust, Botstiber set forth his charitable intentions: to provide scholarships to talented students of good moral character in the fields of science, technology and commerce; to promote an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria; to support programs that prevent cruelty to animals and human beings; and to reform education systems in the fields of science, technology and commerce.

Growing from its roots, today the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies and Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control continue to advance the mission of the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation.

The full book, "Not On The Mayflower" (2007) can be found here.