Untitled - Coalition of Women in German

Spring 1999
N.78
Women in German
Table of Contents
Mission Statement of the Coalition of Women in German ........................................................................... 1
Editorial ......................................................................................................................................................... 1
WiG Bulletins ................................................................................................................................................ 1
Women in German on the Web ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Women in German Annual Prize for a Dissertation by a WiG Member ......................................................................... 1
Conference Announcement: "Voices of the Diaspora: Jewish Women Writing in the New Europe" .............................. 2
Calls for Papers ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Call For Papers - WiG: WiG Yearbook 16 ....................................................................................................................... 2
AATG 2000 - "Teaching the New Generation of German Women Filmmakers" ............................................................. 2
Other Call for Papers: "Migration and Exile in Cinema" ................................................................................................ 3
Call for Papers: "Humor and Irony in Film and Literature by German-Speaking Women" ............................................ 3
Call For Contributions To: "Germans at their Best" ....................................................................................................... 3
Call For Contributions To: SCRIPT ................................................................................................................................ 4
Conference Reports ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4
AATG/ACTFL Conference, November 1998 .................................................................................................................. 5
MLA Conference, December 1998 .................................................................................................................................. 5
German-Turkish Film Festival, March 1999 ........................................................................................ 8
European News ............................................................................................................................................. 9
Personal News ............................................................................................................................................... 11
Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................. 12
Books by Members .......................................................................................................................................................... 12
Books of Interest to Members .......................................................................................................................................... 13
Journals .................................................................................................................................... 16
Book Reviews ............................................................................................................................................... 17
Sabine Wilke. Ausgraben und Erinnern. Zur Funktion von Geschlecht, Subjekt und geschlechtlicher 1dentitiit in den
Texten Christa Wolfs ........................................................................................................................................................ 17
Vibha Bakshi Gokhale. Walking the Tightrope: A Feminist Reading of Therese Huber's Stories.................................. 18
Elke Frederiksen und Elisabeth Ametsbichler (Eds.). Women Writers in German Speaking Countries.......................... 18
Marianne und Martin Loschmann. Einander verstehen. Ein deutsches literarisches Lesebuch ...................................... 19
Manfred Altner. Hermynia Zur Miihlen. Eine Biographie ............................................................................................... 20
Ulrike Weckel et al. Ordnung, Politik und Geselligkeit der Geschlechter im 18. Jahrhundert ....................................... 20
David F. Good et al. Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives... 21
Foley-Beining, Kathleen. The Body and Eucharistic Devotion in Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg's
"Meditations "........................................................................................................................................... 22
New Address Form ........................................................................................................................................ 24
1
Mission Statement
of the Coalition of Women in German
Women in German
WiG Bulletins
Women in German on the Web!!!
Women in German (WiG) provides a democratic
forum for all people interested in feminist approaches to
German literature and culture or in the intersection of gender
with other categories of analysis such as sexuality, class, race,
and ethnicity. Through its annual conference, panels at
national professional meetings, and through the publication of
the Women in German Yearbook, the organization promotes
feminist scholarship of outstanding quality. Women in German
is committed to making school and college curricula inclusive
and seeks to create bridges, cross boundaries, nurture
aspirations, and challenge assumptions while exercising
critical self-awareness. Women in German is dedicated to
eradicating discrimination in the classroom and in the teaching
profession at all levels.
Editorial
Greetings from Maine where spring has not yet come
but hope is high. As always, I want to extend my personal
thanks and thanks on behalf of the membership to the editors,
who continue to do such a great job for the WiG Newsletter:
Karen Achberger, Claudia Breger, Carol Anne Costabile, and
Barbara Mennel. A special thanks to Magda Mueller for her
professional editing of the book reviews. This issue's six
reviews will also be published at our Web Site. I would also
like to welcome graduate student Wiggie, Christina Gerhardt
who will be helping to scout for relevant conference calls.
A highlight for this issue is the revived bibliography
column, which is sure to prove valuable to most, if not all of
us. THANK YOU SARA LENNOX. And we all owe a debt of
gratitude to Sandra Alfers, without whose dedicated computerformating efforts the Newsletter would not appear, plus she is
wonderful to work with, a personal bonus for me.
Weare enclosing a change-or-address form for those
of you who move and still want to receive the Newsletter. The
Newsletter is bulk mail and will not be forwarded, so please
use the form (page 24). Please do not forget to renew your
membership, to enjoy spring, and to savor being a WiG
member.
Check out our web-page at the following address:
www.bowdoin.eduJdept/german/wig
Previous issues of the NL are also available there!
Women in German
Annual Prize for a Dissertation by a WiG Member
The Award
Every year a panel of judges from Women in German
will select one dissertation by a WiG member to receive the
Women in German Memorial Fund Annual Prize of $500.
The recipient will be announced and recognized at an award
ceremony at the annual WiG conference in the fall.
Who Is Eligible
Dissertations by a WiG member filed between June
25, 1998 and June 24, 1999 will be eligible for the 1999
award. Preference will be given to dissertations reflecting the
values of the Women in German Mission Statement (see
Mission Statement at beginning of the Newsletter).
You may join Women in German by contacting:
Jeanette Clausen
Department of Modern Foreign Languages
Indiana University-Purdue University
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
How to Apply
You may either apply yourself, or be nominated.
In either case, the application package must include:
• a cover letter (either by the author or by a nominator)
describing the strengths of the dissertation and any other
reasons why it deserves consideration for the award;
• one copy of the dissertation (on paper), and one on
diskette with an abstract.
It must be mailed to the WiG Steering Committee
at the following address:
Angelika Bammer
The Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts
54161LA Callaway Center
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Women in German
Postmarked no later than June 30, 1999. A nominated
candidate may write herl his own cover letter and include the
letter of nomination in the package.
Criteria for Selection
•
•
•
Weare looking for dissertations that:
reflect the values of the Women in German Mission
Statement;
make a substantial contribution to the current dialogue
in the given area;
demonstrate solid and innovative scholarship.
Conference at Wellesley College
The Jewish Studies Program at Wellesley College
will host an international conference titled Voices o/the
Diaspora: Jewish Women Writing in the New Europe on April
11, 1999. Participants will include major women writers from
Poland, Germany, the former USSR, England, France, Spain
and Italy. Contact Prof. F. Malino at (781) 283-2633 or Th.
Nolden.
2
The Women in German Yearbook is a refereed
journal. Please prepare your manuscript for anonymous
review. Manuscripts should not exceed 25 pages (typed,
double-spaced) and should be formatted according to the MLA
Handbook (4th edition, 1995: separate notes from works
cited). Please send one copy of the manuscript to each
coeditor:
Patricia Herminghouse
Department of Modern
Languages and Cultures
Box 270082
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0082
Phone: 716-621607
Fax: 716-865-5336
E-mail: [email protected] . rochester. edu
Susanne Zantop
Department of German Studies
Dartmouth College
Hanover, N.H. 03755
Phone: 603-646-3515
Fax: 603-646-1474
E-mail: Susanne. M. Zantop@dartmouth. edu
Calls for Papers - WiG
Editor: Barbara Mennel
Bates College
83 Elm Street
Lewiston, ME 04240
Phone (207) 786-6278
[email protected]
Women in German Yearbook
The Women in German Yearbook invites submissions
for volume 16 (2000). We are interested in feminist
approaches to all aspects of German literary, cultural, and
language studies, including pedagogy, as well as in topics that
involve theory; the study of gender in different contexts: for
example work on colonialism and postcolonial performance
and performance theory; film and film theory, or on the
contemporary cultural and political scene in German-speaking
countries.
While the Yearbook accepts manuscripts for
anonymous review in either English or German, binding
commitment to publish will be contingent on submission of a
final manuscript in English.
AATG2000
Boston, Massachusetts
WiG Session
Teaching the
New Generation of German Women Filmmakers
This panel explores approaches to teaching recent
popular films by directors such as Doris Dorrie, Katja von
Garnier, and Caroline Link in language, literature, culture, film
or women's studies courses. Papers might consider the films
"Bin ich schon?," "Abgeschminkt," or "Jenseits der Stille,"
e.g., in terms of specific teaching strategies, cultural issues, or
their representation of gender relations in contemporary
Germany.
Please send 1-2 page abstracts by November 1, 1999
to both:
Brigitte Rossbacher
Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literature
Campus Box 1104
Washington University
St. Louis, MO 63130
Ph: (314) 935-42881 Fax: (314) 935-7255
Email: bross@artsci . wustl. edu
and
3
Women in German
Katrin VOlkner
German Studies
Box 90256
116 Old Chemistry
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Fax: (919) 660-3166
Email: [email protected]
Other Calls for Papers
Migration and Exile in Cinema
Contributions are sought for a collection of new
essays, tentatively entitled "Moving PictureslMoving Cultures:
Cinemas of Exile and Migration," that will focus on how the
experiences of migrants, immigrants, exiles, and sojourners
have been represented in contemporary international cinema.
Of particular interest are discussions on the cinematic
depiction of cross-cultural and transnational movements
(individual and collective) and of the relation between cultural
identity and place, as well as analyses off individual feature
films antreatment of filmmakers who are .exiles or immigrants
themsevles or have shown an interest in the topic. All critical
and theoretical approaches are welcome, including cultural
studies of travel and displacement, ethnic and postcolonial
studies, and psychoanaltyic theories of identity. Possible
topics to be addressed are the complexities of adaptation or
restistance to new cultures; culture transfer, hybritdity,
and biculturality; the meanings of nostalgia and home for
diasporic identities and communities; intergenerational
conflicts between tradition and modernity; representation and
negotiation of national and ethnic borders; and the role of
gender and race in the construction of (im)migrant identities.
Suggested films for discussion include "Bhaji on the Beach,"
the films of Hanif Kureishi, "Lamerica," "Mississippi
Masala," "Chocolat," "Picture Bride," "Bye-Bye," "Broken
English," "Double Happiness," "Sugar Cane Alley," "Hate,"
"Overseas," "Journey of Hope," "Song of Exile," "EI Norte,"
and "Lone Star."
Send inquiries, papers (no more than 20 pp. in
length), or proposals by J5 April J999 to:
Eva Rueschmann, Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies,
Hampshire Coli., Amherst, MA 01002
(erha@ hamp.hampshire.edu).
Humor & Irony
in Film and Literature by
German-Speaking Women
24th Annual Colloqium on Literature and Film
Sept. 16-18, 1999
University of West Virginia
Morgantown, VA
Please send abstracts of papers by April 25, 1999 to:
Gesa Zinn
Dept. of Modern Languages
University of Louisville, KY 40292
Fax: (502) 852-8885
Email: GOZINN01@athena . louisville . edu
Germans at their Best:
Making Use of Material and Mass Popular Culture
Contributions are sought for a scholarly edition which
seeks to provide an exacting and revealing understanding of
the obsessions, habits, and desires of modern German society
by investigating the very German relations to German
produced and/or consumed popular culture artifacts.
RATIONALE
All objects of (mass) popular culture are invested
with messages that provide an understanding of the society in
which they appear. Popular culture takes risks, plays with
meaning, and determines behavior. The study of popular
commodity consumption promises to expose critical
dimensions of a highly complex, material-based dialogue in
and on German society via its images and forms. We propose
that the traditional academic division between 'high-brow' and
'low-brow' culture - perpetuated to this day by the German
academy - is reductive, inadequate, and misleading for
understanding the Germans as a people. Our aim is to enrich
the traditional study of German culture by offering an
interdisciplinary forum that gives room to the treatment of
nontraditional textual forms such as everyday commodities,
artifacts, and cultural events.
PARTICULARLY WELCOME
are papers (original contributions only) investigating:
* Film, photography, advertising, magazines and the press, TV
and radio, the Internet, postcards, graffiti, sci-fi, pulp fiction,
comics, cookbooks, exhibitions, trade fairs, and other forms of
popular media;
* Dance halls, cabaret and pop songs, cafes and bars, carnival,
Love Parade, sports, travel and tourism, theme parks, toys,
comedians and satire, icons and celebrities, popular thinkers;
* Food, drink, smoking, drugs
* Sex, love, romance, pornography;
Women in German
* Furniture and appliances, ornaments and kitsch, nature parks
and gardens, monuments, street signs, the architecture of
private homes and public buildings;
* Green products and labels, Heimatkultur, Ostalgie;
Contributions may endeavor to reflect upon the following
questions:
** Which objects are emphatically engaged in the material
communication processes of cultural values in Germany?
** How does the pleasurable consumption of commodities
inflect the broader social and symbolic relations between
German consumers and German or international producers?
** How do the nature and content of manipulative messages
sent from 'above' find form? How does consumer choice
intercept or dispute these messages?
** How does the perspective of a material focus interlock with
ongoing debates on national and class histories, feminist,
gender, and queer concerns, and matters related to
ethnography and pedagogy?
** How are boundaries and stereotypes negotiated by the
social dialogues contained in material and mass popular
culture items?
** How does popular culture construct or deconstruct
stereotypical national identifiers (such as Germans as serious,
organized, hardworking people) in the cycle of production and
consumption?
** How do popular culture artifacts uphold or bridge the gaps
between mainstream and minority cultures?
Abstracts and papers in English.
Deadline for ABSTRACTS: July 30, 1999
Deadline for PAPERS: February 10,2000
Send abstracts and inquiries to:
Chris Lorey I John L. Plews
Department of German and Russian
University of New Brunswick
Box 4400
Fredericton, NB
Canada E3B 3V8
[email protected]
[email protected]
Phone (506) 458-7715
Fax (506) 453-4659
SCRIPT
Frau - Literatur - Wissenschaft
"Frauen und Medien"
Script ist eine deutschsprachige literaturwissenschaftliche feministische Halbjahresschrift, die sich zum Ziel gesetzt
4
hat, ein Diskussionsforum ftir literarisch und
literaturwissenschaftlich arbeitende Frauen zu sein. Jedes
Heft erscheint zu einem bestimmten Schwerpunktthema.
1m Mai erscheint unser nachstes Heft zum Thema
FRAUEN UND MEDlEN.
Wir planen Artikel zu drei Aspekten:
* Arbeit von Frauen in Medien
* Positionierung frauenspezifischer Medien
* Frauen als Rezipientinnen
Redaktionsschluss ist der Ol.April99. Beitrage
sollten 8-Din-A4-Seiten nicht tiberschreiten. Die Ubermittlung
sollte per Email stattfinden
(Word-Format).
Weitere Informationen sind aufunserer Homepage zu
finden: http://www.edu.uni-klu.ac.atl-script
Wir freuen uns tiber Beitrage!
die Redaktion
Conference Reports
Editor: Carol Anne Costabile-Heming
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
Southwest Missouri State University
901 S. National Avenue
Springfield, MO 65804-0089
Phone (417) 836-5122
Fax: (417) 836-7626
[email protected]
This column publishes as a first priority summaries of
papers presented at the annual WiG Conference and at WiGsponsored panels (those whose topics are determined by the
membership at the annual WiG Conference) at the GSA,
AATG, and MLA annual national meetings. Proceedings of
the WiG and GSA Conferences will be published in the Fall
issue of the Newsletter, and of the MLA and AATG in the
spring issue. Coordinators of these panels should get from
their presenters a 300 word (approx.) summary of their papers
on diskette. In addition, a hard copy of the summary should be
sent to Carol Anne. Diskettes should be IBM format, and the
be published as space allows and word processor used must be
compatible with WordPerfect 5.1 or Microsoft Word 6.0 for
Windows. Email submissions are also welcome and should be
sent to Carol Anne. Each summary should include the
following information: the name of the presenter, institutional
affiliation, title of the panel, and title of the paper. Summaries
5
Women in German
of papers presented at other conferences will follow the rules
outlined above.
AATG
Chicago, November 1998
"Embodying the Nation" organized by Brigitte Rossbacher
(Washington University) and Mariatte Denman (Stanford)
Agents of National Renewal: Gender, Sport, and Aviation in
the Weimar Republic
Lynne Frame, University of San Francisco
Many Weimar fitness movements viewed sport as a
"PflegesHitte staatsbiirgerlicher Tugenden," for women as well
as men. In these visions, the woman athlete's contributions to
nation and community would encompass both the genderspecific functions of childbearing and "aesthetic stimulation"
and readiness to serve as soldiers for the nation in the
anticipated "battles" for survival and cultu~al rene~~l. This
also applied to the "ultimate sport" of the time, aViatIOn.
Pursuing one of the most nationalistically charged
sports of the We.imar era, famed German woman aviato~s were
celebrated in the popular press on the same terms as their male
counterparts: as tough, heroic representatives of "deutsche
Maschinen und den neuen deutschen Menschen." As women,
however, they lent additional dimensions to this nationalist .
performance. Gender worked in two directions at once, ~akmg
the myth of aviation more accessible to the general ~~bhc at
the same time that it augmented its spectacular quahtIes. Not
surprisingly, the press took great pains to assure its readers of
the stable femininity of these tough new women.
The role of aviation and sports in general in the
Weimar-era quest for national renewal thus helps to explain
why the boundaries of the acceptably "feminine" underwent
significant changes during this period. Commentato~s called
for the development of traditionally masculine heroIc
qualities-will power, decisiveness, action and physical.
strength-to be developed in the entire German population as
an act of defiant rejuvenation of the defeated nation. In the
context of Weimar physical culture, images of heroic, selfsacrificing sportswomen suggested an era of mass
mobilization, a new community of healthy, hardy Germans,
and by extension, Germany's strength and status among
modern nations. By invoking their "eternal" femininity, these
same images provided assurances of stability and of the
orderliness with which the nation was moving into the new
age.
Revelations of Masculinity in German literature between 1992
and 1997
Ute Maschke, Brown University
In times when whole sociopolitical systems are
destabilized, or even abandoned, actions (spontaneous or not,
conscious or unconscious) performed by societal members, on
an individual and/or an organizational level, gain considerable
importance. In my paper, I investigated literary manifestations
of "a group of practitioners" of contemporary German society
for whom the changes in Germany on a national level assumed
apocalyptic proportions on an individual as much as on a
societal level. I suggest that the historical divide of 1989/90
presents for (German) masculinity that what Kaja Silverman
refers to as "historical trauma" - the rupture of societal
(masculine) concepts based on psychoanalytical terms which
describe individual suffering. The "political earthquake" of
1989/90 threatened to terminate, and perhaps "successfully"
terminated, aspects of masculinity, as we know it. It was and
is a revelation of the emptiness around which the "male
theater" (Michael Taussig) evolves. Disenchantment about
masculine constructs of specific kinds of stability and authority
- as narrated in Norbert Bleisch's Viertes Deutschland,
Thomas Hettche's Nox, and Bodo Morshauser's Tod in New
York City - caused severe disorders of the (male) self and
disruptions of (masculine) identity. Simultaneously, new (?)
fantasies of power and (sexual and political) control are staged
on the male body and tested in a text like HeIden wie wir by
Thomas Brussig.
Investigating representations and consequences of the
ruptures and revelations, I followed the narrators' suggestions
and read the texts, stories of male characters, as "projections"
(as in Viertes Deutschland, e.g.), as dreams, day dreams and
perhaps hallucinatory fantasies (Nox) of psychical reality
(realities) struggling with major disruptions in intersubjective
relationships and social structures. The texts continually give
points of reference for such a reading. Dreams, fantasies, and
thoughts turn out to be high-level defenses pointing to a much
deeper anxiety: these thought experiments might also be the
authors' attempts to rationalize, intellectualize, and perhaps
even to un-do their own desires for and fears of 'a new
Germany' by means of externalizing them in stories.
MLA1998
San Francisco, December 1998
"Engendering Technology"organized by Myong Lee
(Stanford) and Angelika Fiihrich (Bryn Mawr)
Behind the Badge-Gender, Technology, and Police Authority
in the Great Police Exhibition of 1926
Sara F. Hall, University of California at Berkeley
Women in German
While women had been employed by the police for
assistance in matters of social welfare since at least the
Wilhelmine era~ officially ranked German female officers were
not retained until the mid-nineteen-twenties. The impetus to
enlist women in regional police forces evolved out of the
women's movement, the sex reform movement, and post-war
demilitarization and allied occupation; since 1919, daily
papers, women's weeklies, and police trade journals had
debated over the viability of this new authority figure.
Between 1925 and 1927 female forces were established in
Baden, Saxony, Hamburg, and Prussia. and police officials
faced the task of introducing her to the general public in a
fashion that would breed familiarity, engender legitimacy, and
instill trust. The question of female police authority and
community reinforcement was interwoven with contemporary
debates over the mandate of all police troops, especially in
Prussia, where the constabulary had undertaken a complete
reorganization following the November Revolution.
Technology and the military operated as key terms in this
general rehabilitation effort, terms, which simultaneously
colored the discourse surrounding the introduction of the
female officer.
In the lectures, newspaper articles, and urban
exhibitions crafting a public image for her, technology served
as a point of orientation for audiences (male and female)
attempting to come to terms with the new role for women.
Such representations reveal the relationship between gender,
technology, and police authority to be a significant element in
the re-negotiation of German cultural and social authority
after 1918. In particular, this paper closely analyzed the
linguistic and visual strategies operative in the demarcation of
binary gender roles in Joseph Roth's 1923 essay
"Mechanismen mit Raderwerken in der Brust", displays in the
1926 Great Police Exhibition in Berlin, and a Prussian police
documentary "Die weibliche Polizei" from 1927. In all three
texts technology is coded as an un-feminine, a factor whose
revolutionary impact on the lives and work of women must be
mitigated by more traditional images of maternalism and social
engagement.
Insurgent Women - The Feminine, Technologies o/Warfare,
and the Nation
Bettina Becker, Indiana
In the 1970s, West Germany was confronted with a
seemingly enormous wave of terrorist activities which
consequently became a central issue in the mass media and
political discussions at the time. The terrorist threat from
within was aggravated by postwar Germany's problematic
relationship with its past and with its future as a nation.
Especially women's involvement in the terrorist activities of
6
the RAF and their leading role in these circles baffled the
public. Articles in the political press, such as the 1977
"Spiegel" articles, "Frauen im Untergrund: 'Etwas
Irrationales'" and "'Frueher haette man sie als Hexen
verbrannt"', clearly bespeak the confusion created by female
terrorists whose activities clash with accepted gender norms.
The crisis of representation kindled by female terrorist
violence can be linked to the diverse dynamics between
technology and gender within the larger framework of a
national imaginary. This presentation discusses the
representations of female insurgency in the newsmagazine
"Der Spiegel". In partiCUlar, I examine how "Der Spiegel"
strives to maintain stability within a dichotomization of victim
and perpetrator, and how representations of female insurgency
disturb such stable binarisms. On all levels, "Der Spiegel"
articulates the female body to technology in specific ways.
Yet, the connection of women and war technology emerges as
a particularly problematic relationship at the point when
femininity and deviance converge in the image of the
destructive maternal (terrorist) body. I argue, therefore, that
representations of female insurgency during the 1970s, a time
when the female body became ever more technologically
accessible, ironically express what "Der Spiegel" calls a
"suffocating anguish," in a cyborgian conjunction of the
pregnant body and the machine.
Focal Feminism: Film Technologies, Alienation, and Agency
in Valie Export's Invisible Adversaries
Kathrin Bower, University of Richmond
Set in Vienna in the 1970s, Valie Export's Invisible
Adversaries (1977) presents a loosely structured story utilizing
a multitude of film techniques to portray Anna's progressive
alienation in a society she sees as being overtaken by forces of
aggression and violence. Anna, a photographer and video
artist, seems to walk the line between heightened perception
and psychosis, and her sensitivity to the relationships between
gender, technology, power, and destruction in her
surroundings culminates in the conviction that the future of
humankind is threatened by an alien take-over, a take-over that
has already begun with the occupation of human bodies by the
Hyksos. This alien occupation manifests itself as aggression in
a variety of forms, ranging from lovers' quarrels to full-scale
war. The take-over by the Hyksos and the perceived increase
in violence has a distinct gender component apparent in the
resistance Anna meets when she relates her observations to the
key male characters in the story. Her attempt to convince her
lover, Peter, fails when he insists that she is irrational and/or
hallucinating, while her subsequent visit to a psychiatrist
merely reinforces her exclusion from recognition as an equal
in a society determined by male privilege and male definitions
of objective reality. Using a method I term "analytic mimesis"
I offered a kind of performance presentation in which the body
7
of my discussion appeared on video, with my 'live'
contributions being merely repetitions and reinforcements of
statements made in the videotext. In my discussion, I focussed
on the gendered appropriations of technologies, specifically
the revisioning of experience and image achieved through
various film techniques internal to the plot (Anna's
preoccupation with the photographic process) and inherent in
the production of the film itself (Export's concern with the
interaction of process and product apparent in the structural
and editing choices she makes) to demonstrate how Export
uses film technology to render gendered codes of
communication explicit and to demonstrate the connection
between women's oppression and the estrangement within
human society as a whole. Export manipulates the associations
evoked by the implied sci-fi plot line in order to turn the
fiction into a portrayal of a reality of alienation. The science
fiction element is inverted or turned back on itself to reveal the
fait accompli: the invisible/visible presence of the alien in
everyday life. Part of the reason for Anna's alienation is the
communicative conflict she experiences in her interaction with
her lover, Peter. While Anna wishes for love, intimacy, and
supportive companionship, Peter denounces this desire as
humanistic self-delusion, arguing that human beings are
merely by-products of abstract systems and technologies. Peter
mistrusts humanistic discourse as a sham. a deception to dupe
guileless individuals who are naive and stupid enough to hold
these words as representative of 'true' values. While he
recognizes the deceptive quality of language and discourse,
Peter nevertheless lays claim to 'truth' by asserting and reassert
his privileged position as a speaker vis-a-vis Anna, because, as
he maintains in one argument they have in the car, he talks
'sense' and she does not. Asserting his power in and over
discourse even as he disparages its value, Peter wrests speech
away from Anna as an arena for her to act autonomously.
Writing on the mirror the words "Silence is the power of the
powerless," Anna turns to images in her pursuit of selfunderstanding and agency. Symbolically speechless, Anna
utilizes technologies to produce photographs that 'speak',
videos that 'repeat', and tapes 'recording' her longing for
dialogue and connection with Peter. Export reveals Anna's
relationship to technologies to be an ambivalent and
problematic one. On the one hand, Anna wields film
technologies as a means of controlling and recording her
environment. On the other, it is through precisely this process
of recording that she both verifies and reifies her anxieties.
The 'hard' evidence she gathers on the doubleness of human
beings possessed by the Hyksos is met with a resistance and
suspension of belief. While the female body has been the
subject of much of Export's previous work as a performance
and video artist, she has always explored the representation
and engendering of the body by employing technological
means. In examining the body as a kind of fetishized social
object, Export simultaneously fetishizes technology. In
Invisible Adversarie, Export repeatedly explores the tension
between producer and product. The hierarchy and genealogy
Women in German
of origins is disrupted, the distinction between the original and
the copy, the real and the image ofthe real, blurs as their
relationships shift, split, and converge.
I would argue that while Export's film offers a feminist critique
of the interaction of technologies and gender and an indictment
of the role 'phallocracy' plays in the deformation of
subjectivity, its most compelling achievement is its revelation
of means by which 'engendered' technologies can be employed
both to produce and deconstruct subject positions in a
continuing contest over representation, power, and agency.
"Pedagogy and the Authoritarian State" organized by Ursula
Mahlendorf (UCSB) and Sara Paulson Eigen (Harvard)
Shaping Citizens of this World and Heirs to the Next: The
Memoirs of Margarethe E. Milow (1748-1794).
Lisabeth M. Hock, The College of Wooster
In 1778 at the age of thirty Margarethe Elisabeth
Hudtwalcker-Milow, the daughter of a wealthy Hamburg
merchant and wife of a pastor in Luneburg, commenced to
write her memoirs. She began this project for her husband and
children because, as she wrote, her life had been "reich an
Erfahrungen aller Art ... und ... weil Euch, meine Kinder
besonders, diese Erfahrungen nutzen k6nnen (Milow, Ich will
aber nicht mumen 13). When she began to record her story,
Milow had behind her a lover she had been forced to forsake
in order to marry her present husband and the births of six
children. In the remaining sixteen years of her life she would
bear five more children, experience the few joys and many
hardships of existence as a minister's wife in a small town, and
develop the breast cancer that would end her life at the age of
46.
Milow's memoirs reveal the story of a woman
reflecting on her education and thus on the formation of her
subjectivity. In contrast to the eighteenth century educational
books for girls written by Ewald and Campe, her memoirs also
offer a record of a woman's attempt to shape her experiences
into a pedagogical text. My paper examined the manner in
which Milow was educated and the lessons she passed on to
her family. I argued that the sources of her education were
manifold: she was educated through her often clandestine
reading of literary works; she was shaped by the educational
system and the family; and within these realms discipline
directed much of her sex and gender-role education.
Simultaneously, she was educated by her own experience.
Through her education, Milow arrived at an understanding of
her roles as woman, wife, mother, and citizen. I propose,
however, that the autobiographical lessons she intended for her
children were at times conflicted, for what she learned
through reading and through her experience often diverged
from the teachings of her family and other instances of
authority. Milow's memoirs certainly reinscribed eighteenth
century pedagogical discourse that served the interests of the
Women in German
patriarchal family and the authoritarian state. At the same time,
however, they created small but striking fissures in these very
discourses.
Protecting Tantalus's Children: Adolescent Audiences
and Film Reform (1908-14)
Karen J. Kenkel, Stanford University
The talk discussed the impact of child audiences on
the debate about the new medium of film in the pre-WWI
period in Germany. Before state regulation of the film
industry, children formed a primary audience of film. This
caused concern among the educated elite in Germany, many of
whom banded together to "ennoble film" in a loosely
organized film reform movement that began around 1907 and
continued into the war. The film reformers concentrated on
diagnosing the particular danger which film presented to the
moral integrity of Germany as a "Kulturnation" by
demonstrating its negative moral impact on children. In so
doing, they used the child audience to expand their
pedagogical authority and state authority over the mass
cultural audience in general.
The reformers constructed a bridge between the child
and the adult viewer via a particular idea of the film audience
that was indebted to mass psychology ofthe late-19th century.
Mass psychologists argued that the mass was irresponsible and
particularly open to suggestion, characteristics they associated
with children as well. The fear among reformers of film's bad
influence was not only that it cultivated a taste for further bad
influence (for 'immoral' mass culture), but that it made
children/masses unavailable for" good suggestion," which was
oriented towards constructing responsible national subjects.
The talk concluded by showing the tension in the refomers'
pedagogical model, which aimed the child/mass towards
independence, towards learning to judge and reason on its
own, and yet wanted maturation to emerge from a
pedagogical process deeply invested in the power of authority.
Jill Anne Kowalik (UCLA), Respondent:
I invited Professor Hock to focus on the precise
nature of the trauma in Milow's life. Hock outlined the trauma
of restriction, especially the shaming practices of Milow' s
parents when she first falls in love. The impact of such
shaming practices on Milow's internal life was questioned, and
whether there were very early shaming incidents that she
describes in her memoirs. Regarding the story of Milow's
mastectomy, I wondered whether Milow actually died of breast
cancer, because breast cancer lumps do not generally cause
pain, which Milow says she experienced - a report on which
Hock bases the diagnosis. I questioned whether there was
other clinical evidence for this diagnosis, and if Milow
8
might have in fact died of the infection induced by the males
who disfigured her. (Mastectomies in the 18 th century may
after all have had a sadistic element.) Professor Hock was
asked whether Milow's mastectomy was a shame-filled retraumatization.
With Stephan Schindler's analysis, I wondered to
what degree the adolescent boy may have internalized
phantasies of phallic destruction as a means of Bildung, which
might in turn call into question several notions underlying the
supposed attitudes of superiority of the male genitalia in the
18th century.
Karen Kenkel's paper focused more on Bildung than
on Trauma, but there was nonetheless a subtle notion of
trauma in the phenomenon of infantilization of adults through
film that drives the cultural dynamic she so brilliantly
described. Kenkel was asked whether abusive childhoods may
have made filmgoers particularly vulnerable to mass
manipulation, in view of the fact that emotional manipulation
and extortion in early childhood can often lead to a kind of
herd mentality through the desire to conform and to "be good."
German-Turkish Film & Video Festival:
Culture of Birth, Culture of Migration
From March 2-March 7, 1999 the first Rhode Island
GermanlTurkish Film and Video Festival on the topic of
globalization and migration was held at Brown University.
With the support of several institutions and individuals, Mine
Eren of Brown University organized an invigorating and
impressive event. The festival impressed first and foremost
with its screenings of films from Turkey and Germany, often
Turkish/German or TurkishlItalian co-productions. Several of
the films were made in the recent years, and, thus offered
insight into the recent developments in cinema in Turkey. In
addition, the attendance of filmmakers, including Osman
Okkan, Mustafa Altioklar, Tevfik Baser and Seyhan Derin,
was also impressive. The weekend screenings alone were
accompanied by panel discussions with five filmmakers who
came from Turkey and/or Germany. The discussions with the
filmmakers allowed for debates about a changing public sphere
in Turkey, the representation of Turkey abroad, the negotiation
of Turkish culture in Germany, Turkish-German identity, and
aesthetic and political questions in general and in regard to
individual films. The conference also included presentations
by scholars and diplomats from the United States and Turkey.
The festival not only attracted scholars of Film, Turkish, and
German Studies, but also members of the local Turkish and
German communities, which made for lively, informed, and
sometimes passionate debates. Al in all, the conference was
impressive in scope, depth, and spectrum of the films shown
and the talks presented, as well as the collegial and collective
atmosphere the organizers were able to create.
9
Women in German
European News
Editor: Claudia Breger
Institut fur deutsche Literatur der Humboldt Universitiit Berlin
Philosophische Fakultiit II
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin
(Sitz: Schtitzenstr. 21)
Phone (49 30) 20196783 (bzw. 791 7655)
Fax: (4930) 20196 690
"Perceiving and Performing Gender"
4. Symposium zur Geschlechterforschung, 12.-14.
November 1998, Kiel
Yom 12.-14. November 1998 fa,nd in Kiel das 4.
Symposium zur Geschlechterforschung unter dem Titel
"Perceiving and Performing Gender" statt. Das Symposium
wird in zweijahrigen Abstanden vom Zentrum fiir
interdisziplinare Frauenforschung (ZiF) der ChristianAlbrechts-Universitat zu Kiel veranstaltet. 1998 gab es zum
ersten Mal zusatzlich zu den Plenumsvortragen Parallelsektionen zu den Themenbereichen "Text, Kunst, Medien",
"Geschichte und Gedenken", "Stimme und Sprache",
"Konstruktion von Geschlecht", "Natur und Korper" sowie
"Beruf und Familie".
Die interessantesten V ortrage im Rahmen des
Plenums stammten meiner Meinung nach von Mahzarin R.
Banaji (Yale University, Department of Psychology), und von
Elisabeth Bronfen (Universitat Ziirich). Mahzarin R. Banaji
berichtete von ihren Experimenten zu impliziten Vorurteilen
und demonstrierte dem erschrockenen Publikum, dass auch wir
eine Liste von deutschen und tiirkischen Namen und deutschen
positiv und negativ konnotierten Wortern ("Gliick",
"Regenbogen" vs. "Geiz", "Hass") wesentlich schneller den
zwei Seiten "entweder deutsch oder positiv" und "entweder
tiirkisch oder negativ" zuordnen konnten als den zwei Seiten
"entweder tiirkisch oder positiv" und "entweder deutsch oder
negativ". Ais weitere Ergebnisse dieser (sonst computergesteuert durchgefuhrten) Methode der Messung von
Reaktionszeiten stellte sie vor, dass Manner "ich" schneller mit
mannlichen Begriffen wie "freshman" in Einklang bringen,
Frauen dagegen schneller mit neutralen Begriffen wie
"firstyear"" , sowie dass Manner eine Praferenz fiir "weibliche"
Namen zeigen, aber eine Ablehnung von Konzepten wie
"female leader". Elisabeth Bronfen legte dar, inwiefern die
Sprache der Hysterie eine Weigerung darstellt, sich der
allgemeinen Weigerung anzuschlieBen, die Fehlbarkeit der
gesetzlichen Ordnung und die Zerbrechlichkeit einer
Vorstellung vom Gliick wahrzunehmen.
Ansonsten sprach im Plenum Anthony Mulac
(University of California, Santa Barbara) zur Wahrnehmung
von Frauen und Mannern im Hinblick auf ihr sprachliches
Verhalten, Donald G. MacKay (University of California, Los
Angeles) stellte seine Untersuchungen zum Erlernen,
Verstehen und Denken von grarnmatischem Geschlecht im
Englischen, Deutschen und Spanischen vor, Thomas W.
Laqueur (University of California, Berkeley) sprach iiber die
Erfindung und die Vergeschlechtlichung der Onanie seit dem
18. Jahrhundert, und Jutta Allmendinger (LudwigMaximilians-Universitat, Miinchen) und Richard Hackman
(Harvard University) stellten ihre Untersuchung zu Strategien
von deutschen und amerikanischen Symphonieorchestern und
Forschungsinstituten im Umgang mit Spannungen durch
Veranderungen in den Geschlechteranteilen vor.
In der Sektion zu "Stimme und Sprache" zeigten
beispielsweise Norma Mendoza-Denton (University of
Arizona) und Stefanie Jannedy (Ohio State University) durch
Verbindungen zwischen "Knarren" (creak) in der Stimme von
kalifornischen Latinamadchen in StraBenbanden und ihrer
Benutzung von Make-up auf, dass diese tiefe Tonlagen zur
Inszenierung von Weiblichkeit verwenden, und machten die
Notwendigkeit deutlich, die Interpretation von Stimmumfang
und Tonlagen von den Geschlechterstereotypen
"hoch=feminin" und "tief=maskulin" abzukoppeln. In
ahnlicher Richtung stellte Monique Biemans (University of
Nymegen) eine Studie vor, in der sie eine nur sehr geringe
Korrelation zwischen der Selbstidentifikation hinsichtlich
Geschlecht und der Phonation. Artikulation und Prosodie der
untersuchten Personen feststellte. im Gegensatz dazu aber eine
hohe Korrelation zwischen der Fremddefinition hinsichtlich
Geschlecht und der Wahrnehmung der Phonation, Artikulation
und Prosodie derselben Personen.
Insgesamt boten die Themen der Plenumsvortrage ein
breites Spektrum und damit die Moglichkeit zu interdisziplinaren Blicken und Anregungen. Die Vielzahl der
Parallelsektionen ermoglichte dariiber hinaus. dass im
Gegensatz zu vergangenen Jahren auch NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen ihre Arbeiten in Vortragen vorstellen konnten.
Dadurch konnte ein breiterer Austausch stattfinden und mehr
neue Kontakte gekniipft werden. Ais einziger Abstrich bleibt
anzumerken. dass einige Vortrage sowohl im Plenum als auch
in den Parallelsektionen recht wenig mit "perceiving and
performing" von Geschlecht zu tun hatten und statt dessen mit
unhinterfragten biologischen Kategorien von Geschlecht
arbeiteten. Insgesamt aber war es eine sehr interessante und
vielfaltige Konferenz. und die Symposien zur Geschlechterforschung in Kiel stellen meiner Meinung nach gerade fur die
Geschlechterforscherung hier in Deutschland eine Moglichkeit
zur internationalen Vernetzung und damit eine wichtige
Bereicherung dar.
Jenny Neumond (Berlin)
Women in German
Lesbian Subject Positions: The 4th German.language
Lesbian Studies Symposium, Nov. 13·15 1998, Berlin
The fourth German-language Lesbian Studies
Symposium took place in the Heinrich Boll Stiftung in Berlin
from November 13-15, 1998. The symposium brilliantly
organized by Claudia Breger, Antje Hornscheidt, Esther
Lopez, Ulrike RogIer, and Cathrin Winkelmann, was the
occasion for a multiplicity of presentations addressing a
diversity of topics. The opening-night panel, consisting of
Ilona Bubeck (Quer Verlag), Sabine Hark (Uni Potsdam, Dep.
of Sociology), Sabine A. Peters (FLUSSlForschungsnetzwerk
fUr lesbische und schwule Studien, Uni Siegen), Ipek
Ipek~ioglu (who has been doing research on lesbians within
immigrant communities) and Anja Kofbinger (Green Party)
and moderated by Claudia Breger and Esther Lopez, addressed
the subject of the history of lesbian scholarship, clearly from a
diversity of perspectives. The nineteen papers, given primarily
by German graduate students, were organized according to the
following rubrics: Un/Mogliche Subjekt-positionen: genders
und sexualities; Lesbische "Bewegungen"; Disziplinare
Bewegungen: Methoden und Begriffe; Lesbische Heldinnen?;
Verschwiegene Sexualitaten - Verschweigen Sexualitaten?;
Politische Theorie? Perspektiven. The papers addressed topics
such as: the subject position of the independent woman of the
19th century; the representation of lesbians in Berlin
periodicals in the 1920's; lesbian appropriations of
masculinities and to what extent this disrupts the murderous
asymmetrical binary of normative sexuality; butch-femme
identities in the 70's, the criticism they received from the
women's movement, and what they stand for today in light of
queer and gender politics; a comparative study of the political
identity of lesbians in Germany in the 20's and 70's; lesbian
marriage and family; the 1974 trial in Itzehoe and its
importance for the German lesbian movement; the necessity
for feminists, lesbians and other marginalized groups to
acknowledge the points in which their various interests
intersect and to interrogate the notion of substantial identity, a
hegemonic notion which works to keep non-normative groups
in their place as the abject other; the low stress and abuse rate
in lesbian relationships; the role of the sublime in American
lesbian literature; Ulrike Ottinger's film Madame X and
whether and to what extent it is about a utopic place or if it
rather works positively to destabilize and expose the
performativity of cultural norms; the "Frauenfreundschaft" of
Bettine von Arnim and Karoline von Gtinderrode and to what
extent it can be said to be homoerotic; lesbian desire in
Annemarie Schwarzenbach's "Lyrische Novelle"; and a
comparison of U.S. and German lesbian pornography.
There were also a number of workshops which gave
participants the opportunity to discuss topics such as: how to
put together a syllabus for a lesbian literature seminar; racism
and how to deal with it; the aims of
10
FLUSSlForschungsnetzwerk fUr lesbische und schwule
Studien in NordrheinWestfalen; what it means for women to
gaze actively; and lesbian literature in the DDR. On Saturday
night, a performance at the lesbian bar, Begine, by the
Hamburg cabaret group "Die Frittosen" was also on the
schedule.
It was a positive weekend, bringing several
generations of women together and in friendly, productive
dialogue. What struck me, a native San Franciscan, and what
points to one of the differences between Germany and the U.
S., is the strong presence of the separatist position, which is
still maintained primarily, but not exclusively, by the 70's
generation. For example, when one speaker explained that the
term queer denotes non-normative sexuality, meaning not
exclusively lesbian or gay, this provoked sounds of surprise
from the audience. This was also the first Lesbian Studies
symposium open to all interested (in addition to the 120
women, 1 man attended), which shows the changes taking
place in the German lesbian scene. It should be noted that the
decision to open the conference did not go without criticism.
What I also encountered was an American woman who left
after hearing that it was a Lesbian and not a Gender Studies
conference. In the U. S., Lesbian Studies symposiums have
been superseded by Queer and Gender Studies conferences,
but that doesn't mean that the interests of lesbians, feminists,
postfeminists, gays, queers, and other marginalized groups
don't intersect and aren't relevant for one another. Indeed, they
are very relevant for one another. A lot of thinking still needs
to be done on both sides of the Atlantic, as people interrogate
the exclusionary practices through which they define
themselves. The 1998 German-language Lesbian Studies
Symposium was an excellent event. It showed women
seriously thinking about what it means to constitute a marginal
subject position.
Cathy B. P. Lara (UC Berkeley)
Gemischte Gefiihle. Aimee und Jaguar,
Eroffnungsfilm der Berlinale 1999
Der nach dem Roman von Erica Fischer entstandene
Film (Regie: Max Farberbock) tiber die Liebesbeziehung
zwischen Felice Schragenheim und Lilly Wust (s. den Bericht
im Newsletter vom Sommer '97) ist im Februar in Deutschland
angelaufen - anlaBlich des jahrlichen Berliner Filmfestivals,
das dieses Jahr mit ihm erOffnet wurde. 'Gemischte GefUhle'
hinterUiBt sowohl das Ereignis als auch der Film selbst.
Kritikbruchstticke zur Begrtindung meines Unbehagens:
Willst du die totale Liebe? GroBe Geftihle im Krieg des
Jahrhunderts. Von Jan Schulz-Ojala (aus: Tagesspiegel,
10.2.99)
Ein deutscher Film erOffnet die Berlinale und geht
auch noch ins Rennen urn den Goldenen Baren: Blickt man auf
11
die cineastischen Katastrophen der jungeren Vergangenheit, ist
das geradezu eine Sensation. ( ... ) Heute aber darf aufgeatmet
werden. Wenn nach Max Hirberbocks "Aimee und Jaguar" der
Abspann Hiuft, werden wir sagen konnen, wir sind noch einmal
davongekommen, und zwar achtbar. Sagen wir's
nationalmannschaftlich: Deutschland legt, wenn auch ein
fiihlbares Stuck am Triumph vorbei, Ehre ein auf dieser
Berlinale. Fiirberbocks erster Kinofilm - nach einigen
preisgekronten Fernsehproduktionen - wagt sich an ein
schwieriges Thema, ( ... ) er ist sorgfaltig fotografiert, und er hat
- ja, wagen wir das Wort - Stars. Weibliche Stars. Ein
deutsches Frauleinwunder sozusagen. Maria Schrader wachst,
richtig ausgeleuchtet, unmerklich ins Ikonenhafte, ohne dafur
aufregend agieren zu mussen, und Juliane Kohler spielt sich in
ihrer ersten groBen Kinorolle die Seele aus dem Leib. Und was
ffir eine Seele! ( ... )
Juliane Kohler ist Lilly Wust, "Aimee", die Geliebte.
Oder eher die Liebende in diesem Duo mit der jungen Jiidin
Felice (Maria Schrader), der erotischen Jagerin, die sich so
raubtierhaft "Jaguar" tauft? Ais eine von Hunderttausenden
von Gebiir-Muttern des Fuhrers hat Lilly Wustzackzackzackzack - vier strammen Jungs das Leben
geschenkt, und auf einmal wird sie, am Ende ihrer zwanziger
Jahre, von einer Art Beben erfaBt. Durch Vermittlung ihrer
Pflichtjahr-Haushaltshilfe lernt sie Felice, kennen, eine
Streunerin, die den Judenstern abgerissen hat, urn aus vollen
Zugen zu leben - und Felice besteigt sie, bringt ihr Lust bei,
macht sie schamlos, suchtig und horig, loscht fur immer Lillys
Erinnerung an all die Manner, die da mal eben drubergegangen
sind (auch den Ehemann: Detlev Buck findet fiir diese Figur
eine phantastisch durchdringende Uberflussigkeit). Lilly
wechselt die Seite, wechselt yom ausgemusterten Gatten
Gunther-Adolf dem Ersten hinuber ins Jaguarische und lebt
diese Liebe gewissermaBen total, yom Fruhsommer 1943 bis
zum 21. August 1944, als die Gestapo Felice festnimmt und
ins KZ verschleppt. ( ... )
1m Bemuhen, nachstellend nichts zu verpassen,
verpaBt [der Film] die eigene Perspektive. Er puzzelt, statt zu
bauen. Und erledigt dann wieder Schliissel-Ereignisse mit
einem Satz - wie jene im Buch ausfiihrlich geschilderte
Irrsinnsreise Lillys nach Theresienstadt Ende September '44,
die die ungeheure Liebe und die ungeheure Naivitat dieser
Frau geradezu ins Gleichnis treibt.
Fur diese Risse hat der Film Kleister. Braunen
Kleister. Die Tapeten, Teppiche, Turen, Bilderrahmen,
Lampenschirme: alles braun. Sepiabraun, nostalgiebraun,
nazibraun, gute-bose-alte-Zeit-braun, alles wird eins in dieser
Farbe. Insofern ist "Aimee und Jaguar", bald sechzig Jahre
danach, auch ein Dokument einebnender Entfernung.
Reichlich unsalvatorisch bebildert der Film jenes "Der Krieg
war meine schonste Zeit" -Gefuhl, das die heute nicht mehr so
ganz Jiingeren einst mit tiefem MiBtrauen aus den unerzahlten
Geschichten der Eltern herauslasen. ( ... )
Women in German
Die Bomber und das Begehren (Georg Seeslen, in: Die Zeit,
11.2.99)
( ... ) Und daB ( ... ) auch der Hauptgeschichte nicht
vollstandig zu trauen ist, laBt die knappe Rahmenhandlung
zumindest als Moglichkeit offen: Am Anfang erleben wir, wie
Lilly Wust im Jahr 1997 ihre Wohnung raumen muB und im
Altersheim wieder auf lIse [die Haushaltshilfe und Erzahlerin]
trifft. Am Ende sehen wir die beiden im Gesprach. "Das
Schicksal hat mich betrogen", meint Lilly bitter, und lIse
antwortet sarkastisch: "Erst der Fuhrer, dann das Schicksal."
So bleibt etwas durchaus Zweifelhaftes an dieser Projektion
der groBen, unmoglichen Liebe.
Lange Zeit scheint es, als werde da eine sehr private
Geschichte vor dem Hintergrund einer furchtbaren Zeit
erzahlt, als seien Nationalsozialismus und Krieg auch ganz
buchstablich undeutlicher Hintergrund. Beinahe sind wir
versucht, uns von der "Tanz auf dem Vulkan"-Stimmung
anstecken zu lassen, die Schrecken der Geschichte als Ferment
des erotischen Dramas zu erleben, im Blick des Begehrens
sogar Bomber am Nachthimmel, Leuchtspurgeschosse und
zerberstende Hauser als schon zu empfinden. Doch im letzten
Teil, als Felice ihre Flucht abbricht und nach dem Ausflug an
einen See, nach Momenten des offenbar vollkommenen
Glucks, verhaftet wird, als aIle sie verleugnen, bricht diese
Konstruktion zusarnmen. Es ist mehr als die Auflosung der
Illusion, das private Gluck uber den Zusarnmenbruch des
Regimes retten zu konnen. Wir haben eine Reihe von
Modellen gesehen, den Faschismus mit einer Maske nach
auBen und einem menschlichen Handeln nach innen zu
uberleben. Keines davon halt wirklich stand. ( ... )
Personal News
Editor: Karen R. Achberger
St.Olaf College
Northfield, MN 55057
[email protected]
Tel: (507) 646-3881
Fax: (507) 646-3549
Have you recently moved, been promoted, won a
prize, had a baby, gotten married or tried out a new job? These
are the types of personal news that we would like to hear
about. Submissions may be of any length, from a sentence to a
page, depending on the content. Please submit any bits of
personal news to Karen.
Helen Chambers Becomes German Chair
Congratulations to Helen Chambers, who has been
appointed Chair of the German Department at St Andrews
University starting in September 1999. Her colleagues are
sorry to lose her at Leeds, where she has provided
Women in German
academic leadership as well as stimulating xollegiality. It
appears that she is the first female Professor of German in
Scotland, and we can only hope that this appointment is the
beginning of a new trend!
12
indispensable to their work or which they think will be of
particular interest to the membership. Sara has compiled a list
of books and journals published beginning in 1997.
Jennifer Ward Receives Tenure
We are delighted to announce that Jenifer K. Ward
has been awarded tenure at Gustavus Adolphus College in St.
Peter, Minnesota.
Deborah Lefkowitz' Films
in Art Galeries in California and Berlin
Deborah Lefkowitz, who screened and discussed her
documentary film INTERVALS OF SILENCE: BEING
JEWISH IN GERMANY at one of our previous WiG
conferences, has just informed us of three upcoming gallery
installations employing images from the film's
outtakes but projecting them into three-dimensional
spaces through which viewers are free to move:
SHADOW PIECES runs March 15-ApriI16, 1999 at
El Camino College Art Gallery in Torrance, CA; tel. (310)
660-3010
LIGHT CHAMBERS runs March 21 - May 2, 1999 at the
University of Judaism-Platt Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; tel.
(310) 476-9777 x276
ECLIPSES runs August 20 - September 10 at Galerie "Am
Scheunenviertel" in Berlin (Mitte).
Bibliography
Editor: Sara Lennox
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
Phone H (413) 584-4982
Phone W (413) 545-0043
Fax: H (413) 586-9760
Fax: W (413) 545-6995
[email protected]
Members are invited to send Sara information on their new
books for inclusion in the NEW BOOKS BY MEMBERS
bibliography. A second bibliography called BOOKS OF
INTEREST TO MEMBERS will also be published in the
next Newsletter. WiG members are urged to send Sara
bibliographical info on recent books they have found
Books by WiG members:
Albrecht, Monika, and Dirk Goettsche, eds. Ingeborg
Bachmann: Das Buch Franza. Das "Todesarten"-Projekt in
Einzelausgaben. Miinchen: Piper, 1998.
-----, eds. Ingeborg Bachmann: Requiemfor
Fanny Goldmann und andere spate "Todesarten"-Texte. Das
"Todesarten"-Projekt in Einzelausgaben. Miinchen: Piper,
1999.
----, eds. "Uber die Zeit schreiben": Literatur und
kulturwissenschaftliche Essays zu Ingeborg Bachmanns"
"Todesarten" -Projekt. Wiirzburg: Konigshausen &
Neumann, 1998.
Belgum, Kirsten. Popularizing the Nation: Audience,
Representation and the Production of Identity in Die
Gartenlaube, 1853-1900. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1998.
Bjorklund, Beth, and Mark E. Cory, eds. Politics in German
Literature. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
Brandes, Ute. Gunter Grass. Berlin: Morgenbuch, 1998.
Breger, Claudia.. Ortlosigkeit des Fremden: "Zigeunerinnen"
und "Zigeuner" in der deutschsprachigen Literatur um 1800.
Cologne: Bohlau, 1998.
-----, and Tobias Doering, eds. Figuren derides Dritten:
Erkundungen kultureller Zwischenraeume. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 1998.
Daly, Margaretmary. Women of Letters: A Study of Self and
Genre in the Personal Correspondence of Caroline SchlegelSchelling, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, and Bettina von Arnim.
Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
von Dirke, Sabine. "All Power to the Imagination!": The
West German Counterculture from the Student Movement to
the Greens. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1997.
13
Women in German
Foley-Beining, Kathleen. The Body and Eucharistic Devotion
in Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg's "Meditations."
Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997.
Miiller, Heidy Margrit, ed. Dichterische Freiheit und
padagogische Utopie. Studien zur schweizerischen
Jugendliteratur. Bern: Lang, 1998.
Frederiksen, Elke P., and Elizabeth Ametsbichler, eds.
Women Writers in German-Speaking Countries: A BioBibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CN:
Greenwood, 1998.
-----, ed. Verschwiegenes Wortspiel. Kommentare zu den
Werken Ilse Aichingers. Akten der internationalen Tagung
vom 27.128. April 1998 an der Vrije Universiteit Brussel,
Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1999.
Friedrichsmeyer, Sara, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, eds.
The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its
Legacy. Ann Arbor, U of Michigan Press, 1998.
Pickar, Gertrud Bauer. Ambivalence Transcended: A Study of
the Writings of Annette von Droste-HiilshoJf. Columbia, SC:
Camden House, 1998.
Gleber, Anke. The Art of Taking a Walk: Flanerie,
Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1998.
Rossbacher, Brigitte, and Robert Weninger, eds.
WendezeitenlZeitenwenden: Positionsbestimmungen zur
deutschsprachigen Literatur 1945-1995. Tiibingen:
Stauffenburg, 1997.
Hanscom, Martha, and Sigrid Mayer. The Critical Reception
of the Short Fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and Gabriele
Wohmann. Columbia, S.e.: Camden House, 1998.
Harnisch, Antje, Anne-Marie Stokes, and Friedemann
Weidauer, eds. Fringe Voices: Texts by and about Minorities
in the Federal Republic of Germany. Oxford: Berg, 1998
Herminghouse, Patricia, ed. Ingeborg Bachmann and Christa
Wolf: Selected Prose and Drama. The German Library. New
York: Continuum, 1998.
Joeres, Ruth-Ellen. Respectability and Deviance: NineteenthCentury German Women Writers and the Ambiguity of
Representation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998.
Scaff, Susan von Rohr. History, Myth, and Music: Thomas
Mann's Timely Fiction. Caolumbia, SC: Camden House,
1998.
Tewarson, Heidi Thomann. Rahel Levin Varnhagen: The Life
and Work of a German Jewish Intellectual. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska Press, 1998.
Tragnitz, Jutta, trans. My Years in Theresienstadt: How One
Woman Survived the Holocaust. By Gerty Spies. Amherst:
Prometheus Books, 1997.
Van Ornam, Vanessa, trans. and introd. Beyond Atonement,
by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Columbia, SC: Camden
House, 1997.
Kacandes, Irene, Scott Denham, and Jonathan Petropoulos,
eds. A User's Guide to German Cultural Studies. Ann Arbor:
U of Michigan P, 1997.
Wilson, W. Daniel. Unterirdische Gange: Goethe,
Freimaurerei und Politik. G6ttingen: Wallstein, 1999.
Lischke-McNab, Ute. Lily Braun (1865-1916): German
Writer, Feminist, Socialist. Columbia, SC: Camden House,
1998.
-----. Das Goethe-Tabu: Protest und Menschenrechte im
klassischen Weimar. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,
1999.
Liske, Vivian. Die Dichterin und das schelmische Erhabene:
Else Lasker Schilkers "Die Nachte Tino von Bagdads."
Tiibingen: Franscke, 1998.
Wurst, Karin A., ed. Adelheit von Rastenberg: The Original
German Text. By Eleonore Thon. New York: MLA,1997.
Lorenz, Dagmar e.G., and Renate S. Posthofen, eds.
Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins: Essays on
Ethnic and Cultural Boundaries in German-Speaking
Countries. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
Lug, Sieglinde, trans. Nadirs [trans. of Niederungen]. By
Herta Miiller. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1999.
----- and Alan C. Leidner. Unpopular Virtues: The Scholarly
Reception of J.M.R. Lenz. Columbia, SC: Camden House,
1998.
Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies.: Conquest, Family,
and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1779-1870. Durham:
Duke U P, 1997.
Books of interest to WiG members:
Madland, Helga Stipa. Marianne Ehrmann: Reason and
Emotion in Her Life and Works. New York: Lang, 1998.
GERMAN STUDIES (Feminist and Other)
Women in German
Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Trans. Robert
Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1998.
von Ankum, Katharina, ed. Women in the Metropolis:
Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture. Berkeley: U of
California P, 1997.
Aregger, Jost. Presse, Geschlecht, Politik:
Gleichstellungsdiskurs in der Schweizer Presse. Bern: Institut
flir Medienwissenschaft, 1998.
Arens, Hiltrud. "Kulturelle Hybriditiit" in der deutschen
Minoritiitenliteratur der achtziger Jahre. Ttibingen:
Stauffenburg, 1998.
Baur, Uwe, Karin Gradwohl-Schlacher, and Sabine Fuchs, eds.
Macht, Literatur, Krieg: Osterreichische Literatur im
Nationalsozialismus. Wien: Bohlau, 1998.
Bauschinger, Sigrid. The Triumph of Reform: German
Literature in New England of the Nineteenth Century,
Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
Beckers, Marion, and Elisabeth Moortgat. Lotte Jacobi:
Berlin-New York. Berlin: Nicolai, 1998.,
Berman, Russell A. Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial
Discourse in German Culture. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,
1998.
Bird, Stephanie. Recasting Historical Women: Female
Identity in German Biographical Fiction. Oxford: Berg,
1998.
Blau, Eve. The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919-1934.
Cambridge: MIT P, 1998.
Brokoph-Mauch, Gudrun. Thunder Rumbling at My Heels.
Tracing Ingeborg Bachmann. Riverside: Ariadne, 1998.
Brown, Hilda Meldrum. Heinrich von Kleist: The Ambiguity
of Art and the Necessity of Form. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998.
Busch, Alexandra, and Dirck Linck, eds.
Frauenliebe!Miinnerliebe: Eine lesbisch-schwule
Literarurgeschichte in Portriits. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997.
Carter, Erica. How German Is She? Postwar West German
Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman. Ann Arbor: U of
Michigan P, 1997.
14
Classen, Albrecht. Deutsche Frauenlieder des fii,nJzehnten und
sechzehnten Jahrhunderts: Authentische Stimmen in der
deutschen Frauenliteratur der Fruhneuzeit oder Vertreter
einer poetischen Gattung (das Frauenlied)? Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 1998.
Daniel, Ute. The War from Within: German Working-Class
Women in the First World War. Trans Margaret Ries.
Oxford: Berg, 1997.
Drew, Eileen, Ruth Emerek, and Evelyn Mahon, eds. Women,
Work and the Family in Europe. London: Routledge, 1998.
Erhart, Walter, and Britta Herrmann, eds. Wann ist der Mann
ein Mann? Zur Geschichte der Miinnlichkeit. Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1997.
Erickson, Raymond, ed. Schubert's Vienna. New Haven:
Yale, 1997.
Evans, Richard J. Tales from the German Underworld;
Narratives of Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth
Century. New Haven: Yale U P. 1998.
Fell, Karolina Dorothea. Kalkuliertes Abenteuer:
Reiseberichte deutschsprachiger Frauen 1920-1945.
Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998.
Fiddler, Allyson, ed. 'Other' Austrians: Post-1945 Austrian
Women's Writing. Bern: Lang, 1998.
Fischer, Lisa. Kaiserin Elisabeth und die Frauen ihrer Zeit.
Wien: Bohlau, 1998.
Fritsche, Johannes. Historical Destiny and National Socialism
in Heidegger's Being and Time. Berkeley: U of California P,
1999.
Gay, Peter. My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi
Berlin. New Haven: Yale U P, 1998.
Georg Grosz: An Autobiography. Trans. Nora Hodges.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1998
Gntig, Hiltrud, and Renate Mohrmann, eds.
FraueniLiteraturlGeschichte: Schreibende Frauen vom
Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. 2nd rev. edition. Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1998.
Goldberg, Ann. Sex, Religion, and the Making of Modern
Madness: The Eberbach Asylum and German Society, 18151849. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998
15
Women in German
Gruber, Helmut, and Pamela Graves, eds. Women and
Socialism, Socialism and Women: Europe between the Two
World Wars. New York: Berghahn,1998 ..
Lange, Silvia. Protestantische Frauen auf dem Weg in den
Nationalsozialismus: Guida Diehls Neulandbewegung 19161935. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998.
Guzzetti, Linda. Venezianische Vermachtnisse: Die soziale
und wirtschaftliche Situation von Frauen im Spiegel
spiitmittelalterlicher Testamente. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998.
Lorey, Christoph, ed. Queering the Canon: Defying Sights in
German Literature and Culture. Columbia, SC: Camden
House, 1998.
Haas, Alois M., and Ingrid Kasten. Schwierige Frauen schwierige Manner in der Literatur des Mittetalters. Bern:
Lang. 1999.
Milich, Klaus J., and Jeffrey M. Peck, ets. Multiculturalism
in Transit: A German-American Exchange. Providence, RI:
Berghahn, 1998.
Hanak, Peter. The Garden and the Workshop: Essays on the
Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest. Princeton:
Princeton U P, 1998.
Moeller, Robert G., ed. West Germany under Construction:
Politics, Society, and Culture in the Adenauer Era. Ann
Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997.
Hanssen, Beatrice. Walter Benjamin's Other History: Of
Stones, Animals, Human Beings, and Angels. Berkeley: U of
California Press, 1998.
Museum moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig Wien, ed. Split:
Reality Valie Export. Wien: Springer, 1998.
Hechtfischer, Ute, Renate Hof, Inge Stephan, and Flora VeitWild, eds. Metzler Autorinnen Lexikon Stuttgart: Metzler,
1998.
Hell, Julia. Post-Fascist Fantasies: Psychoanalysis, History,
and the Literature of East Germany (Post-Contemporary
Interventions). Durham: Duke U P, 1997.
Heuberger, Valeria, Arnold Suppan und Elisabeth Vyslonzil.
Das Bild vom Anderen: Jdentitaeten, Mentalitaeten, My then in
multiethnischen europaischen Regionen. FrankfurtlMain:
Lang, 1998.
Jacobs, Carol. If! the Language of Walter Benjamin.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P, 1999.
Kaplan, Marion A. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish
Life in Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998.
Kopstein, Jeffrey. The Politics of Economic Decline in East
Germany, 1945-1989. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P,
1997.
Krell, David Farrell. Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and
Death in German Idealism and Romanticism. Bloomington:
Indiana U P, 1998.
Kremer, Marion. Person Reference and Gender in
Translation: A Contrastive Investigation of English and
German. Tiibingen: Gunter Narr, 1997.
Lehmann, Annette Jael. 1m Zeichen der Shoah: Aspekte der
Dichtungs- und Sprachkrise bei Rose Auslander und Nelly
Sachs. Tiibingen: Stauffenburg, 1998.
Ofer, Dalia, and Lenore J. Weitzman. eds. Women in the
Holocaust. New Haven: Yale U P, 1998
Orsten, Elisabeth M. From Anschluss to Albion: Memoirs of
a Refugee Girl, 1938-1940. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press,
1998.
Ostmeier, Dorothee. Sprache des Dramas--Drama der
Sprache: Zur Poetik der Nelly Sachs. Tiibingen: Niemeyer,
1997.
O'Sickey, Ingeborg Majer, and Ingeborg von Zadow, eds.
Triangulated Visions: Women in Recent German Cinema.
Albany, State U of New York P, 1998.
Pine, Lisa. Nazi Family Policy, 1933-1945. Oxford: Berg,
1998
Pocs, Eva. Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective
on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age. Budapest:
CEU Press, 1998.
Pritchard, Rosalind M. O. Reconstructing Education: East
German Schools and Universities after Unification. Oxford:
Berghahn, 1999.
Purdy, Daniel. The Tyranny of Elegance: Consumer
Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Goethe. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Rapaport, Lynn. Jews in Germany after the Holocaust:
Memory, Identity, and Jewish-German Relations. New York:
Cambridge, 1997.
Rohrlich, Ruby, ed. Resisting the Holocaust. Oxford: Berg,
1999
Women in German
16
Rublack, Ulinka. The Crimes of Women in Early Modern
Germany. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998.
Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity .. Durham: Duke U
P,1998.
Schindler, Stephan K. Eingebildete Korper: Phantasierte
Sexualitiit in der Goethezeit. Tiibingen: Stauffenburg, 1998.
Lamphere, Louise, Helena Ragone, and Patricia Zavella.
Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. New
York: Routledge, 1997.
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. In a Cold Crater: Cultural and
Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1948. Trans. Kelly Barry.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.
Schumacher, Claude, ed. Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah
in Drama and Performance. New York: Cambridge, 1998.
Sklar, Kathryhn Kish, Anja Schiiler, and Susan Strasser, eds.
Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany: A
Dialogue in Documents, 1885-1933. Ithaca: Cornell U P,
1998.
Watts, Meredith W. Xenophobia in United Germany:
Generations, Modernization, and Ideology. New York: St.
Martin's, 1997.
Weedon, Chris, ed. Postwar Women's Writing in German:
Feminist Critical Approaches. Providence, RI: Berghahn,
1997.
Weissberg, Liliane and Dan Ben-Amos. Cultural Memory and
the Construction of Identity. Detroit: Wayne State U P, 1998.
Weitz, Eric D. Creating German Communism, 1890-1990:
From Popular Protests to Socialist State. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1997.
Young, Brigitte. Triumph of the Fatherland: German
Unification and the Marginalization of Women. Ann Arbor:
U of Michigan P, 1998.
Zelizer, Barbie/ Remembering to Forget: Holocaust Memory
through the Camera's Eye. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998.
Mariniello, Silvestra, and Paul A. Bove, eds. Gendered
Agents: Women and Institutional Knowledge. Durham: Duke
UP, 1998
McClintock, Anne, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Showat, Eds.
Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial
Perspectives. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997.
Meijer, Maaike, ed. The Defiant Muse: Dutch and Flemish
Feminist Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Present. New
York: Feminist P, 1998.
Oliver, Kelly, and Marilyn Pearsall, eds. Feminist
Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche. University Park: Penn
State U P, 1998.
Pierson, Ruth Roach, and Nupur Chaudhuri, eds. Nation,
Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race.
Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1998.
Journals
New journal: Feminist Europa. Review of Books (reviews
feminist publications in languages other than English)
$12/individuals, $28/institutions for 3 issues/yr; mail or fax
Visa card number, expiration date and signature to Women's
International Studies Europe, Attn: Feminist Europa. Review
of Books, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS
Utrecht, The Netherlands, Tel. 31302531881, Fax 2531277
New journal: Interventions: International Journal of
Postcolonial Studies, ed. Robert Young. Subscription
information from [email protected]
GENDER STUDIES (non-German)
Boyarin, Daniel. Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of
Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man.
Berkeley: U of Califonia Press, 1997.
Special issue of Critical Inquiry, 25.2 (Winter 1999)
"Perspectives on Walter Benjamin."
Charles, Nickie, and Helen Hintjens, eds. Gender, Ethnicity,
and Political Ideologies. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Querelles: Jahrbuchfiir Frauenforschung. Ed. Angelika
Erbrecht, Irmela von der Liihe, Ute Pott, Cettina Rapisarda,
and Anita Runge. Vol 1 1996: Gelehrsamkeit und kulturelle
Emanzipation. Vol 3 1998: Freundschaft im Gesprach.
Gaard, Greta, and Patrick Murphy, eds. Ecofeminist Literary
Criticism. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 1998.
Special Issue of The South Atlantic Quarterly 96.4 (Fall 1997)
"German Dis/Continuitiesre
17
Women in German
Special Issue of ZeitschriJt fUr Germanistik, Neue Folge 9.1
(1999),"'Gender Studies'/Geschlechterstudien"
Book Reviews
Editor: Magda Mueller
Department of Foreign Languages
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0825
Phone (916) 893-0361
[email protected]
Submissions policy: Books reviewed should be
relevant to feminist criticism in the field of German and
Comparative Studies. Reviews of books by single authors
should not exceed 600 words. Reviews of books by mUltiple
authors should not exceed 900 words. Unsolicited reviews will
be published on a space-available basis.
Wilke, Sabine. Ausgraben und Erinnern. Zur Funktion von
Geschichte, Subjekt und geschlechtlicher ldentitiit in den
Texten Christa Wolfs. Wiirzburg: Konigshausen &
Neumann, 1993. 182 pp.
In this excellent study of Christa Wolfs texts, Sabine
Wilke presents first a comparison of Wolfs self-reflective
writing style with the writing strategies of the new historians.
Highlighting the parallels between the two, Wilke reviews the
ambivalence of the kind of historical writing process that
teeters between the objectivist and idiosyncratic subject
positions as well as the tension between the subject acting on
society and society'S acting on the subject.
Chapter Two compares Wolfs archeological model of
historiography to Benjamin's fragment "Ausgraben und
Erinnern." The ~cheologist, the site of excavation, and the
discovered object must be illumined in their intrinsically
linked environment as configuration. Benjamin's archeologist
hunts for splinters of silenced history (monads) not found in
the traditional victors' history. By resubmitting Benjamin's
dialectic of stasis in a dialectic with the writing of history,
Wolf problematizes historiography as archeology by drawing
attention to her tools (writingllanguage) which are always
already imbued with tradition. Discoveries are immediately
beset by repression or homogenizing intent.
Chapter Three investigates passages dealing with
fascism and the final solution, compares Wolfs arguments to
those of the Historikerstreit, and scrutinizes Wolfs technique
of analogy-building. Through historical analogies, Wolf
explores the connection between historical materials and
subjective remembering. By stringing together personal
observations of past and present, Wolf does not assume an
apologetic position but rather problematizes the process of
memory.
Chapter Four looks at definitions of subjectivity and
identity. Wilke explores a shift in Wolfs writing from the
dialogical perception of the subject in Nachdenken uber
Christa T to a more essentialist stance in Kassandra. In spite of
Wolfs reliance on enlightenment ideas (e.g., a rational model
of conflict-solving), she presents a new model of how
sex/gender may be perceived. By presenting female figures
within a net of relationships, she (re )creates their identities
anew. Simultaneously, through her critical excavation, these
figures have access to an assumed plane of authentic
femininity long buried by historical and cultural processes.
Wilke locates Wolfs aesthetic of resistance in the play of these
two moments.
Discussing the mirror scenes in Wolfs works,
Chapter Five problematizes the identification-formation as it is
conditioned by mirroring-processes, and examines the
strategies of doubling, role-reversals, gender/sex-changes, the
dissolution of subjectivity and sex/gender, etc. She draws on
Stefan's Hiiutungen and Aichinger's Spiegelgeschichte to
compare the multi-layered process of identity-formation found
in Wolf. Wilke identifies three forms of poetic play based on
the discussion of women's relationship to specular logic and to
the space of mirroring.
Wilke then applies Irigaray's "parler femme," her
reading against the grain, to various Wolf texts. Focusing on
the doubling and division of female identity, she examines how
Wolf employs the image of the distorting mirror in Kein Ort.
Nirgends to allow the Gtinderrode figure to escape the
specular (male) logic. Equally interesting is her analysis of the
cross-dressing and trans gender imagery in the same novel.
The concluding chapter explores the body's status as
stage for the performance ofWeiblichkeit. Wilke examines
first the representation of a gendered body as the stage for the
violent inscription of social structures. Aspects of this can be
self-negation and self-mutilation, exemplified in Wolfs
Penthesilea who purposely destroys herself in order to warn
her warriors through her example of their consequences.
Wilke then addresses the function of body language
as an opposing pole to the power of society. Relying on
Kristeva's distinction of the symbolic versus the semiotic, and
Cixous's notion of female desire based on mutual exchange
rather than conquest, she suggests that Wolfs texts exhibit
problematic and contradictory elements of a similar kind of
desire, sisterliness, and a return of the repressed semiotic.
Women in German
In conclusion, Sabine Wilke presents an important
contribution toward the critical body concerned with Wolfs
oeuvre. The study's strength lies in the contextualization of
feminist concerns as they surface in Christa Wolfs texts.
Roger Russi
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Gokhale, Vibha Bakshi. Walking the Tightrope: A Feminist
Reading of Therese Huber's Stories. Columbia, SC:
Camden House, 1996. 119 pp. $55.95.
The bourgeois ideal of the sentimental family which
arose during the late eighteenth century definitively relegated
women to the private sphere and to the corresponding
domestic roles of wife, mother, and caretaker. In her writing,
as in her personal life, Therese Huber neither radically
opposed this norm nor did she programmatically seek to
change it. She sought to maintain a feminine image and took
pride in her faithful devotion to her household and familial
responsibilities. Yet Huber did lead an unconventional life; she
was a prolific author of novels, stories. and travelogues, as
well as a translator, editor, and biographer. Paradoxically, her
outspoken conformity to the norm allowe4 her to
simultaneously circumvent that norm and maintain a career as
a freelance writer.
In her feminist reading of a selection of Huber's
narrative prose works, Gokhale demonstrates that the author
uses the very same strategy of touting tradition to
communicate non-traditional attitudes in her works. Gokhale
effectively argues that beneath the overt conformity of Huber's
texts to the social norm lies a form of subtextual protest, which
she describes in Foucaultean terms as "'a starting point for an
opposing strategy'" (30). By utilizing techniques such as
circumlocution, euphemism, and silence, ambivalence in
content, and the projection of rebellious impulses in antiheroines (Gilbert and Gubar's "dark-double"), like other
women writers of her time, Huber can employ conventional
themes to subversively protest women's subordination. Her
positive female characters find options within the confines of
domesticity to negotiate their freedom and to express
themselves. Women figures who are too independent or
rebellious are punished, or they are integrated into the
domestic setting, or they simply regress into the background of
her narrations. Such a strategy allows Huber to articulate forms
of dissent in the course of her narrations without overtly
approving of them. In her stories, the patriarchal structure of
society is thus neither attacked nor challenged; instead
strategies of power manipulation within the bounds of the
private sphere are revealed. Gokhale points out that unlike the
female characters in her works, Huber herself did enter
18
domains reserved for men. She could do this only by
maintaining a non-threatening domestic image and operating
within the boundaries prescribed by that male-dominated
society.
Gokhale succeeds in demonstrating the existence a
subversive feminist content in five of Therese Huber's stories:
"Die Frau von vierzig Jahren," "Klosterberuf," "Die
Jugendfreunde," "Die ungleiche Heirath," and "Die friih
Verlobten." In addition, Gokhale's prefatory description of the
social and personal circumstances in which Huber lived and
wrote can help the uninformed reader attain a better
understanding of the conditions which affected women's
writing around 1800. If not groundbreaking or wholly new in
its direction, her study does broaden the scope of research on
Huber, whose novels have most often been the primary focus
of feminist scholarship. At the same time, however, Gokhale's
seemingly arbitrary treatment of less than one-sixth of Huber's
narrative prose works leaves the reader asking a number of
questions: What led Gokhale to choose these five works in
particular? In what specific way does each story embody
"characteristics typical of Huber's prose" (2)? And what place
do her narratives have in relation to her oeuvre? One wonders
what specific categories and patterns of protest might emerge
from a comprehensive study of Huber's thirty-three narratives.
Gokhale's study offers a few starting points from which further
exploration can ensue. Detailed answers to such questions
remain a direction for future feminist scholarship, however.
Despite all this, Gokhale's contribution to the body of
Huber research should not be overlooked. She includes in her
work a comprehensive bibliography and detailed index to
facilitate further study, and she does indeed succeed in her
effort to demonstrate in Huber's writing "a constant shift
between conformism and confrontation" (30).
Christine Manteghi
California State University, Chico
Frederiksen, Elke P., and Elizabeth G. Ametsbichler, eds.
Women Writers in German-Speaking Countries: A BioBibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1998. 561 + xxxiii pp. $75.00.
Scholars who use and appreciate Elke Frederiksen's
1989 Greenwood volume, Women Writers o/Germany,
Austria, and Switzerland: An Annotated Bio-Bibliographical
Guide, will not be surprised at the usefulness and high quality
of the present coedited volume. Unlike its predecessor, which
offered brief biographical sketches and extensive annotated
bibliographies for almost 200 women authors, the new critical
sourcebook offers informative articles and bibliographies of
primary and secondary literature on about one-third that
number of women from the early Middle Ages (Hrostsvit von
Gandersheim) to contemporaries, such as Verena Stefan and
19
Elfriede Jelinek. For a Germanist looking at this volume, who
may be tempted to regard it as comprising a sort of "canon" of
German women writers, it is sobering to realize that most of
them remain unknown to English-speaking scholars and
students, as Frederiksen points out in her introduction. The
inclusion under a separate rubric in the individual author
bibliographies of the few extant translations should at least
facilitate broader access to these writers, if not animate further
endeavors to produce sorely needed translations.
Probably because of the long gestation of this project,
some of the individual bibliographies do not appear to be
completely up to date; most do not go beyond the early to mid1990s. The time lag between conception and publication may
also help to explain the near-absence of "hyphenated" German
authors, a lacuna which the editors themselves acknowledge
and attribute to their unsuccessful search for contributors:
With the exception of the Czech-German Libuse Monikova,
minority writers, such as the Afro-German and TurkishGerman women whose presence on the literary scene has
transformed contemporary understandings of "German"
literature, thus do not appear in the volume. Many of them, of
course, also belong to a generation that came into prominence
after that of even the youngest women included in this volume.
The Sourcebook derives its strength from the editors'
success in securing the collaboration of s~holars with
recognized expertise on the authors treated in the articles,
which range from six to twelve pages. Well-written and
eminently readable, these entries present a solid introduction
to their subjects and frequently also offer satisfying new
insights for readers who may already possess basic knowledge
of the author in question. Arranged alphabetically, the articles
follow a uniform pattern of organization, beginning with a
brief account of the author's life and times. The central focus
of every essay, however, is an examination of major themes
and narrative strategies in the work of each author. It is here
that the variety of feminist theoretical approaches employed by
the contributors produces the richness of critical insights that
distinguish this volume from more bland reference works.
With a "Survey of Criticism" reserved for the end of each
article, the contributors' own voices resonate clearly in the
main portion of their analyses.
The volume concludes with a chronological list of
authors by date of birth and a useful general bibliography,
which is organized into the following subsections: reference
works; theoretical and methodological discussions; critical
anthologies and studies on women and German literature and
culture; socio-historical studies; and selected studies and
collections on specific literary and socio-historical topics, the
latter arranged chronologically. All told, this book is a model
of thoughtful conceptualization, careful scholarship, and
conscientious editing. There is no reason, except the price,
why this volume may not find its place in handy reach on the
bookshelf of most Germanistlnnen.
Patricia Herminghouse
Women in German
University of Rochester
Loschmann, Marianne und Martin. Einander verstehen:
Ein deutsches literarisches Lesebuch. New York: Peter
Lang, 1997. 323 pp. $29.95.
Jede(r) Deutschunterrichtende sollte dieses Lesebuch
in seiner/ihrer Buchsammlung haben -- die Frage ob dieses
auch auf jede(n) Deutschlernende(n) zutrifft, kann allerdings
nicht so eindeutig beantwortet werden. Marianne und Martin
Loschmann formulieren in der Einleitung den Wunsch,
interkultureller bzw. menschlicher Kommunikation mit all
ihren positiven aber auch gebrochenen UntertOnen eine
Stimme verleihen zu wollen und dabei nicht lediglich "der
VerkHirung in der aile Menschen Briider werden (XIII)" zu
verfallen. Diesem Anspruch wurde ohne Frage Geniige
geleistet: Einander verstehen ist eine anregende Sammlung
komplexer und vielfaltiger literarischer Texte und
Textausziige, die nur schwerlich zu Schwarz-WeiB-Malerei
oder Heile-Welt-Phantasien einladen. Bemerkenswert ist auch
das breite Spektrum an Texten -- so findet der/die Leser(in)
Kurzgeschichten, Romanausziige, Gedichte, Lieder und
Beispiele anderer Genres aus verschiedenen Epochen, die
ihrnlihr nicht schon aus diversen Lesebiichern fUr den
Fremdsprachenunterricht in Erinnerung sind. Allerdings sind
die Loschmanns sowohl in ihrer Themen- als auch in ihrer
Autorenwahl nicht gerade von der traditionellen
Selektionsweise fUr Anthologien abgewichen: der Lowenanteil
der Texte wurde von Mannern geschrieben und die Themen
konzentrieren sich auf Bereiche wie "Generationen", Frauen
und Manner", "Deutsche" und "Fremde".
Aus didaktischer Sicht laBt das Lesebuch einiges zu
wiinschen iibrig. Den Studenten werden unzureichende
Hilfestellungen an die Hand gegeben. Es gibt weder Aufgaben
zur EinfUhrung in die Themen noch zur Vorbereitung auf das
Lesen und Vokabelhilfen sind eher die Ausnahme als die
Regel. Die Autoren versuchen zwar moglicher Kritik
zuvorzukommen, indem sie kundtun, die Texte benotigten
keine EinfUhrung, weil es sich bei ihrer Textsammlung nicht
urn ein literaturwissenschaftliches oder literaturhistorisches
Buch handele - doch dieses scheint mir fUr ein Lesebuch. das
angeblich schon im Fremdsprachenunterricht der Mittelstufe
einzusetzen sei, eine eher magere Erkliirung zu sein. Die
spiirlichen Aufgaben zur Textanalyse, zur Diskussion, zum
Schreiben und zum Rollenspiel, die dem Leser angeboten
werden, wei sen zudem einige Schwachen auf. So werden die
Studenten (die keinesfalls immer Literaturhauptfachler sind)
zu Genres befragt, ohne diese vorher definiert zu haben, oder
unter der Rubrik Diskussion findet sich ein Eintrag wie: "Was
konnte hier diskutiert werden" (74) ?
Urn auf meine eingangs gestellte Frage zuriickzukommen, ob sich Einander verstehen im Besitz aller
Deutschlernenden befinden sollte, so muB meine Antwort
"nein" lauten. Den Studenten wird der Zugang zu den zum Teil
recht schwer zu erschliessenden Texten (z.B. Ausschnitte aus
Women in German
Heiner Mtillers Leben Gundlings Friedrich von PreuJ3en
Lessings SchlafTraum Schrei oder Franz Xaver Kroetz'
Furcht und Hoffnung der BRD: Ausliinderdeutsch) nicht
erleichtert, und der/die Deutschunterrichtende wird in
seiner/ihrer Arbeit nur insofern entlastet als es sich bei dem
Buch urn eine Fundgrube interessanter und noch nicht allzu
"abgenutzter" Texte handelt. Die Anthologie konnte genauso
gut filr den Oberstufenunterricht an deutschen Gymnasien
zusammengestellt sein und zeichnet sich nicht als eine
padagogisch ausgewogene und durchdidaktisierte
Materialiensammlung ftir den Fremdsprachenunterricht aus.
Britta Bothe
California State University, Chico
Altner, Manfred. Hermynia Zur Miihlen. Eine Biographie.
Bern: Peter Lang, 1997. 257 pp. $33.95.
Hermynia Zur Mtihlen is a name which is familiar to
a few WiG members, but it certainly should be known by us
all. Born in 1883 to one of the highest aristocratic families in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Zur Miihlen was raised in the
traditions of her class and married another, albeit lowerranking Baltic German aristocrat in 1908, but broke free to
become a translator and writer, to join the Communist Party,
then to renounce Communism for left-wing Catholicism in the
1930s. A convinced antifascist, she was forced to flee the
Nazis and lived in Austria, Slovakia, and finally England until
her death in 1951. All but forgotten after the early 1950s, Zur
Mtihlen was "rediscovered" in the 1980s, and the author ofthis
biography, Manfred Altner, was the driving force behind the
Zur Mtihlen renaissance. His biography is a major contribution
to our knowledge about this fascinating writer; it also helps
expand the readers' understanding of the disparate worlds in
which she lived.
One of the difficulties in researching an "unknown"
writer is locating biographical sources years after the subject's
death, and Altner admits that he was unable to find
independent information on Zur Mtihlen's childhood and early
adulthood, so the chapters about this period in her life consist
mainly of quotations from her autobiography, Ende und
Anfang, along with the results of Altner's characteristically
detailed research on her family and first husband. The rest of
the book is divided up into segments focused on the stations of
her very dynamic life and work: Frankfurt am Main, Die
Miirchen, Kriminalromane, Als Emigratin in der der Heimat
are some examples. One segment spotlights her important
work as a translator, and especially her relationship with
Upton Sinclair, which can be documented through the still
extant letters between the two writers. Zur Mtihlen not only
translated his novels and stories, but worked hard making them
known in the German-speaking world. Despite her efforts, this
20
relationship was sometimes rocky, and Sinclair eventually
chose another translator because he had been told that her
efforts were not good enough, a turn of events Zur Mtihlen
attributed to the interference of Wieland Herzfelde and the
Malik publishing house. The association between the two
writers and the conflict with Herzfelde and Malik are
interesting, but Altner explicates this matter in excessive
detail, quoting long sections of the pertinent correspondence.
As here, in other sections of the biography he tends to cite too
copiously from original documents rather than paraphrasing
or, better, analyzing them.
Some of the best segments of the biography deal with
Zur Mtihlen's life in exile. Altner's examination of her life on
the run after leaving Germany in 1933 is a sympathetic
portrayal of how exiles were forced to live, begging for
handouts from relief agencies, leaving the barest essentials
behind, even the books and notes she needed to write.
Especially difficult were her first years in England, where in
the first months after the outbreak of World War II fascists and
antifascists were interned together under circumstances that
jeopardized Zur Mtihlen's already fragile health. In other
excellent parts of the book, Altner provides brief but insightful
introductions and analyses of her works, most of which must
be unfamiliar to his readers. For example, in the chapter about
her 1920s fairy tales, Altner first concisely outlines the
theories behind the proletariat-revolutionary children's stories
of the 1920s, then comments on zur Mtihlen's stories' place and
significance within this genre. Certainly, this new biography
deserves to be read by anyone interested in broadening her
knowledge about German-speaking women writers of the
twentieth century.
Lynda 1. King
Oregon State University, Corvalis
Weckel, U1rike, Claudia Opitz, Olivia Hochstrasser and
Brigitte Tolkemitt, eds. Ordnung, Politik und Geselligkeit der
Geschlechter im 18. lahrhundert. Gottingen: Wallstein
Verlag, 1998. 368 pp. DM 58.
Uberzeugend dokumentiert der umfangreiche Band
vielfaltige und bedeutende Positionen, die Frauen in der
Aufklarung einnahmen. Aufgeraumt wird eindeutig mit dem
Vorurteil, allein Manner seien Agenten der Aufkliirung gewesen.
Frauen partizipierten im KommunikationsprozeB der Aufkliirung
und gestalteten aktiv Diskurse. Neben der Briefkultur beeinfluBten
Frauen Lesegesellschaften und waren wesentlich an der
Gruppenbildung und am FormationsprozeB der aufgekliirten
Bildungselite beteiligt.
Der Band enthiilt vierzehn in zwei thematischen Teilen
gegliederte Essays. Der erste, "Ordnung und Geselligkeit der
Geschlechter bei Hof und in der stadtischen Bildungselite",
21
umfaBt acht und der zweite, "Vom aufkHirerischen Diskurs zur
politischen Praxis", sechs Beitrage. Die Volkswagen-Stiftung
untersttitzte den Druck und finanzierte auch bereits eine Reihe
von Colloquien (1994-96) zu "Politik, Gesellschaft und
Geselligkeit der Geschlechter im Zeitalter der Aufklarung".
Darauf basieren diese Forschungsergebnisse von Historikerinnen,
Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaftlerinnen, die in der
vorliegenden interdisziplinaren Anthologie versammelt sind. AIle
Beitrage nehmen geschlechtergeschichtliche Sichtweisen zum
Ausgangspunkt, aktivieren breitgestreute feministische Ansatze
und etablieren innovative Sichtweisen zum Diskurs der
Geschlechter und der Mentalitatenforschung der Aufklarung.
Auf neuere sozialgeschichtliche Forschungen rekurrierend
werden die hofischen Gesellschaften und die stadtischen
Bildungseliten nicht mehr als unvereinbare Gegensatze
betrachtet, sondern als koexistente Raume gelesen, die sich
nicht nur bertihrten sondern aufeinander vieWiltige Wirkungen
austibten. Diese Wechselwirkungen werden ausgelotet.
Der erste Teil thematisiert das Wechselverhaltnis von
standischer Ordnung und neuen Soziabilitatsformen. Dabei
werden Offentlichkeit und Privatheit nicht mehr als unversohnliche Gegensatze oder gegensatzliche Spharen gedacht, sondern
das Ineinanderwirken beider wird als Offentlichkeit des Privaten
analysiert. Unter diesen Pramissen untersuchen Sybille OBwaldBargende und Helga Meise Ehebrtiche al!l wtirttembergischen
und am hessen-darmstadtischen Hof als offentliche Ereignisse.
Dadurch geraten Matressen in den Mittelpunkt historischfeministischer Diskursanalyse. Anne Fleig untersucht die
(Selbst)Reprasentation als einen Aspekt politischer Kultur
innerhalb der Legitimitat ftirstlicher Macht am Beispiel der
sachsischen Kurprinzessin und spateren Kurftirstin Maria
Antonia. Ihr politischer Aufstieg gelang ihr mit der Aufftihrung
einer von ihr selbst komponierten und geschriebenen
Amazonenoper, in der sie zudem noch als Amazonenkonigin
auftrat. Brigitte Tolkemitt analysiert die herausragende Stellung
von Frauen innerhalb geschlechtergemischter Geselligkeit in den
offenen Hausern der Hamburger Familien Reimarus und
Sieveking. Brigitte Schnegg stellt am Beispiel des Besuchs von
Kloptock bei Bodmer die Vorbehalte des letzteren gegen den
freien Umgang der Geschlechter untereinander dar. Gegen
sozialgeschichtliche Quellen liest Claudia Opitz kritisch
Montequieus Verdikt, Frauen verftigten in der Monarchie tiber
groBere politische Macht.
1m zweiten Teil des Bandes analysiert Susanne Jenisch
die aufklarerische Debatte urn die Authebung der Geschlechtsvormundschaft. 1m Gegensatz zu frtiheren feministischen
Interpretationen liest sie sie als eine wesentliche Instanz zur
Wahrung weiblicher Interessen. Susanne Toppe zeigt, daB der
aufklarerische Diskurs zur Mutterschaft die Position der Frauen
verschlechterte, da er die Kontrolle tiber sie intensivierte. Die
sozialdisziplinierende Rolle der Aufklarung untersucht Olivia
Hochstrasser am Beispiel des gesellschaftlichen Zurtickdrangens
weiblicher Pauperisierter. Vergleichbare Disziplinierungsversuche
sieht Dietlind Htichtkerin der Reglementierung Prostituierter.
Women in German
Irmtraud Gotz von Olenhusen zeichnet in "Das Ende mannlicher
Zeugungsmythen im Zeitalter der Aufkliirung: Zur Wissenschafts- und
Geschlechtergeschichte des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts" die
Entwicklung des naturwissenschaftlichen-aufklarerischen
Diskurses nacho
Leider fehlt dem sorgfaltig edierten Band ein Register
und eine umfassende Bibliographie. Letztere kann aber ohne
wei teres aus den zahlreichen Anmerkungen sondiert werden.
Alles in allem ist diese Essaysammlung ein wesentlicher
Beitrag zum interdisziplinaren Gesprach, der in keiner Bibliothek
fehlen sollte.
Magda Mueller
California State University, Chico
Good, David F., Margarete Grandner, and Mary Jo
Maynes, eds. Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives.
Providence: Bergbabn Books, 1996. 233 pp. $19.95.
While German women have increasingly become the
subjects of interdisciplinary inquiries, the study of Austrian
women has long been secondary to that of their neighbors. The
Austrian Cultural Institute in New York must be commended
for subsidizing the publication of Austrian Women in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, the first of a two-volume
series on Austrian Studies. This one consists of essays derived
from the 1991 "Women in Austria Symposium," held at the
University of Minnesota, which initiated and encouraged an
open exchange on the developing area of women's studies in
the Austrian context. The subtitle, Cross-Disciplinary
Perspectives, indicates the text's greatest strength, namely it's
having compiled essays in history, political science,
economics, social sciences, and gender studies. The diversity
of the contributions is truly impressive, both in regards to the
discipline and the time frame. While earlier studies on Austria
have overwhelmingly focused on turn-of-the-century Vienna,
Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
encompasses a much broader period.
The book is divided into three parts: "Gender and
Politics," "Women and Work," and "Female Identities." In the
first part, James Albisetti convincingly questions the myth of
the alleged Austrian backwardness in female education.
Comparing nineteenth-century schooling and teaching policies
in Austria to those in Germany and Switzerland, Albisetti
concludes that in some areas, Austria was clearly more
progressive than German states and other European countries,
a fact that dramatically underscores the need for more research
on the topic. In "Women in Austrian Politics, 1890-1934:
Goals and Visions" Brigitta Bader-Zaar recounts the history of
the Austrian suffrage movement and analyzes women's
behavior after they were granted voting rights in December
1918, taking into account issues of class, race, and religion.
Bader-Zaar concludes that the frame of cultural feminism,
namely concepts of gender differences, shaped ideas about
Women in German
women in politics before and after enfranchisement.
Particularly fruitful is the continuous comparisons to the
American suffrage movement. Examining the present-day
situation of women in the Austrian parliament, Gerda Neyer's
work continues Bader-Zaar's inquiry. Neyer establishes that
women's increased representation in the Parliament has not led
to gender equality and argues that only participation in the
extra-parliamentary institutions will change existing power
relations. Complemented by valuable statistics, Neyer's essay
is a very readable and succinct summary of gender biases in
Austria's current political system.
In the second part, "Women and Work," Erna Appelt
effectively traces the evolution of "female" positions in the
service sector. She suggests that although gender-specific jobs
resulted in a shift from patriarchal businesses to capitalistic
enterprises, it soon paved the way to a gender-segregated labor
market that secured privileged positions for men. Continuing
to examine women's work in the second half of the twentiethcentury, Gudrun Biffl's contribution provides important
statistics on women's work in the domestic sphere and in the
labor market. This data, which indicates that women work
more hours than men in the household and also do
substantially higher amounts of paid and unpaid work
combined over their life cycle, might be particularly useful for
further analysis. In "Femininity and Profyssionalism: A
Psychoanalytic Study of Ambition in Female Academics and
Managers in Austria," Gertraud Diem-Wille analyses what she
considers to be successful career women, although this term is
never defined. Her controversial essay tends to confirm the
negative stereotype of the obsessive career woman, rather than
make distinctions among women.
In the last part, "Female Identities," Marie-Luise
Angerer describes the development and establishment of
gynecology in the early nineteenth century. While the first part
of her analysis fiils a gap in existing scholarship by providing
the medical context of the discourse on female sexuality,
Angerer's examination of the psychological discourse on
women in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna is less convincing. Angerer
does not give a detailed critical reading of Freud's writings on
hysteria, and her analysis of female sexuality in Klimt's
paintings remains vague. "War and Gender Identity: The
Experience of Austrian Women, 1945-1950," offers interviews
with women from all social classes during W orId War II and
the postwar period in Vienna. The authors question the
victimization myth that exempts Austrian women on the basis
of their nationality and their gender from taking responsibility
for the Nazi past. Their essay examines important and little
researched areas of Austria's postwar history, such as women's
fear of rape by the liberators and the changing gender relations
upon men's return from the front. Some of these theses are
very engaging, in particular, the theory that women employed
Hollywood imagery to describe and frame traumatic postwar
memories. Here, a more detailed analysis and more actual
22
quotes from the interviews would be useful. At other times, the
authors seem surprisingly insensitive, such as in calling a
woman "lucky" because she was "only" raped and did not
contract a disease or an unwanted pregnancy.
All in all, Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Century offers a selection of very fine and engaging
essays. As a resource book, the text provides a wealth of
historical information so increasingly needed for cultural and
literary inquiries. The interdisciplinary character of the work
allows the reader to select up-to-date scholarship in diverse
areas, to have statistics and historical summaries available for
classroom use, and to obtain important references for an indepth examination.
Caroline Schaumann
University of California, Davis
Foley-Beining, Kathleen. The Body and Eucharistic
Devotion in Catharina Regina von Greif/enberg's
"Meditations. " Columbia: Camden House, 1997. 155 pp.
$55.95.
This study takes a fresh look at Greiffenberg's
meditations on Mary's pregnancy and the Last Supper. In four
chapters, Foley-Beining introduces Greiffenberg as a prolific
author, offers historical perspectives on women's religious
writing, and discusses the gendered physical aspects of her
religious understanding in "Von Marien Schwanger-gehen"
(1678), and "Die Abendmahls-Andachten" (1693).
Disregarding Greiffenberg's active engagement with several
literary societies and her vigorous correspondence with leading
members of these societies, Foley-Beining reads her primarily
as a religious writer and considers her work within "a long
tradition of women's written spiritual expression" (25)
characterized by a physical dimension of individual
spirituality. She utilizes "gynocritics" (a term coined by Elaine
Showalter in "Toward a Feminist Poetics" of 1985) for her
concise textual analysis of Greiffenberg's work and advocates
the construction of new theoretical models for further critical
readings of women's literature based on the female sufferance.
The author elaborates on these female experiences in
"Von Marien Schwanger-gehen" and "Die AbendmahlsAndachten" and understands Greiffenberg's detailed
fictionalization of the Holy Mother's pregnancy as an attempt
to elevate women's biological and spiritual dimension.
Although the religious writer herself was never pregnant,
Foley-Beining argues that Greiffenberg's "sensitivity to
maternal issues [and her] empathy for the experience of other
women" (92) allowed her to understand the relevance that
pregnancy played in spiritual growth. However, Foley-Beining
does not problematize Greiffenberg's avoidance of describing
the birth-process. She fails to consider the large number of
23
17th-century women who had miscarriages, stillbirths, or even
died during childbirth. In Foley-Beining's view, women
perceive pregnancy in the same way, arguing that each woman
has the ability to transcend the physicality of the birth process,
and can thereby access an individual religious awareness.
By positioning her analysis within "gynocritics,"
Foley-Beining offers valuable insights on how corporeality can
define gendered religious experiences. Yet, such a critical
approach intrinsically leads to essentialism, and exactly this
essentialist notion threatens to undermine Foley-Beining's
otherwise meticulous textual analysis. A critical engagement
with Greiffenberg's "Meditations" in light of the cultural
restraints placed on women in 17th-century Germany and to
the extent that Greiffenberg's fictionalization stayed within the
narrowly defined spaces of correct female behavior would
provide a broader analysis of Greiffenberg's work. Further
investigation into Greiffenberg's knowledge of the Querelle
des Femmes could elucidate a gender awareness beyond the
corporeality of women and inquire whether Greiffenberg's
religious writings can be seen as part of a German Querelle
tradition. Nevertheless, Foley-Beinings close reading of the
"Meditations" is an important contribution to a literary history
that includes a critical engagement with texts by early modern
women.
Christina Frei
University of California, Davis
Women in German
•
Women in German
24
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