Virtual Summit Submission

Austin Community College
German

Biography

Lucas Baker is a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in German. He previously studied at Austin Community College, during his study abroad experience, and holds a Permaculture Design Certification earned in 2022. His academic interests focus on cultural anthropology, history, and human-environment interactions, inspired by scholars like David Hackett Fischer and Ruth Benedict. Lucas works as a Student Technician with the Texas German Dialect Project. He plans to continue studying cultures by learning Afrikaans, interning on an Afrikaner-owned permaculture farm in South Africa, and potentially serving as a teaching assistant at an Austrian vocational school.

Project

Tradition and its Discontents: A comparative study of the fundamental values and assumptions made about reality of Anglo-Texans and Austrians
In the summer of 2025, I traveled to Austria to investigate how culture shapes perceptions of history, identity, and the moral framework of daily life. My project aimed to compare the core values and unspoken assumptions about reality held by Anglo-Texans and Austrians, two groups with shared ties to tradition, local pride, and borderland legacies, but with distinct ways of remembering, adapting, or rejecting their pasts.
Key questions guiding my inquiry were: What philosophical foundations underlie everyday views on authority, morality, aspiration, and identity in these societies? How do people discuss religion, react to bureaucracy, or envision their role in a historical timeline?
I drew on historical research into the ethnogenesis and political evolution of each region, combined with informal interviews conducted in German and observations conducted with Austrians across Vienna, Tyrol, Salzburg, and Styria.
My findings highlight contrasting cultural logics: Austrians often show detached reverence for tradition, emphasizing stability, institutional trust, and preservation amid postwar influences, while Texans actively defend traditions linked to independence, self-reliance, and skepticism of central authority, reflecting frontier dynamics.
These insights show how historical conditions affect different paths to cultural continuity, offering broader lessons on resilience and adaptation, particularly with regard to modernity.