German Culture, Media, Gender

German Culture, Media, and Gender

Dr. Katrina Sark

Course Outline:

(Subject to changes / in progress)

DATE

TOPICS

Historical Overview of Feminist Movements in Weimar, East-, and West Germany

CASE STUDIES: Bertha Pappenheim, Irmgard Keun, Helke Sander, Christa Wolf
READINGS: Marion Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1908-1938, Hilke Schlaeger and Nancy Vedder-Shults, “The West German Women's Movement,” Heike Trappe, “Review: Putting German Feminism in a Historical Perspective,” Katja M. Guenther, Making Their Place: Feminism after Socialism in Eastern Germany (2010), Women after Communism: the East German experience. “Introduction” pp. 1-8, Daughters of Eve: Women’s Writing from the German Democratic Republic “Introduction: Women, Social Policy, and Literature in the German Democratic Republic” pp. 1-24

EXTRA

Gendered Memory

CASE STUDIES: Ruth Klüger, Germany Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter), dir. Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980
READINGS: Ilse Aichinger, “Life Story in Retrospect” (“Spiegelgeschichte”), 1949, Dinah Dodds, The Wall in My Backyard: East German Women in Transition (1995)

ASSIGNMENT:

Contemporary Feminism

CASE STUDIES: Anne Wizorek, #aufschrei, Alice Schwarzer, Wir Alphamädchen
READINGS: Sara Lennox, “Divided Feminism: Women, Racism, and German National Identity” (1995), Heike Bartel, Pushing at Boundaries: Approaches to Contemporary German women Writers from Karen Duve to Jenny Erpenbeck (2006), Helen Frink, Women after Communism: the East German Experience (2001)

ASSIGNMENT:

Feminist Media

CASE STUDIES: Emma, Missy Magazine, Mädchenmannschaft blog, Frau TV, Feminismus, Fuck Yeah!
READINGS: Silke Beinssen-Hesse and Kate Rigby, Out of the Shadows: Contemporary German Feminism (1996)

ASSIGNMENT:

Transgendered Voices

CASE STUDIES: Conchita Wurst, Reyhan Şahin (aka “Lady Bitch Ray”)
READINGS: N. O. Body, Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years (1907)

ASSIGNMENT:

Minority Voices

CASE STUDIES: Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Yoko Tawada, Hito Steyerl
READINGS: May Opitz, Farbe bekennen: Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (1992), Farbe bekennen. Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out “Editor’s Introduction” pp. xxi-xxv; “Pre-colonial Images of Africa, Colonialism, and Fascism” pp. 3-40 and Afro-German Women poetry, Christina Gerhardt, “Transnational Germany: Hito Steyerl's Film Die leere Mitte and Two Hundred Years of Border Crossings” (2007), May Ayim, Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry and Conversations (2003)

ASSIGNMENT:

Cinema

CASE STUDIES: TORPEDO (dir. Helene Hegemann, 2008)
READINGS: Sandra Frieden, Gender and German Cinema - Feminist Interventions (1993), Barbara Mennel, “Local Funding and Global Movement: Minority Women's Filmmaking and the German Film Landscape of the Late 1990s” (2002), East German Cinema Blog,
Julia Knight, Women and the New German Cinema (1992)

ASSIGNMENT:

Documentary Films

CASE STUDIES: Everything We Want (dir. Beatrice Möller, 2013)
READINGS: Linda Williams, “Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and the New Documentary” (1993)

ASSIGNMENT:

Art

CASE STUDIES: Danielle de Picciotto
READINGS: Danielle de Picciotto, The Beauty of Transgression, A Berlin Memoir, 2011.

ASSIGNMENT:

10.

11.

12.

Literature

CASE STUDIES: Zoë Jenny, The Pollen Room (Das Blütenstaubzimmer), 1997.
READINGS: Patricia A. Hermingshouse and Magda Mueller (eds.), German Feminist Writings (2002), Nancy Lukens and Dorothy Rosenberg (transl.), Daughters of Eve: Women’s Writing from German Democratic Republic (1993)

Feminist Masculinities

CASE STUDIES: Klaus Wowereit
READINGS: Jennifer Creech, “A Few Good Men: Gender, Ideology, and Narrative Politics in The Lives of Others and Good Bye, Lenin!” (2009)

Conclusion

ASSIGNMENT:

Resources:

Suggested Readings – in English:
Ilse Aichinger, “Life Story in Retrospect” (“Spiegelgeschichte”), 1949.
May Ayim, Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry and Conversations. Africa World Press, 2003.
Edith H. Altbach (ed.), German Feminism: Readings in Politics and Literature, State University of New York, 1984.
Ingeborg Bachmann, Malina, 1991.
Heike Bartel, Pushing at Boundaries: Approaches to Contemporary German women Writers from Karen Duve to Jenny Erpenbeck.
Rodopi, 2006.
Silke Beinssen-Hesse and Kate Rigby, Out of the Shadows: Contemporary German Feminism, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1996.
Jennifer Creech, “A Few Good Men: Gender, Ideology, and Narrative Politics in The Lives of Others and Good Bye, Lenin!” Women in
   German Yearbook, Vol. 25 (2009), pp. 100-126.
Dinah Dodds, The Wall in My Backyard: East German Women in Transition, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.
Mary Eagleton, Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader. 3rd edition. Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 2011.
Sandra Frieden, Gender and German Cinema - Feminist Interventions, 1993.
Sandra Frieden, “Women's Cinema in West Germany,” Monatshefte, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Fall, 1990), pp. 276-285.
Helen Frink, Women after Communism: the East German Experience. University Press of America, 2001.
Christina Gerhardt, “Transnational Germany: Hito Steyerl's Film Die leere Mitte and Two Hundred Years of Border Crossings.”
     Women in German Yearbook. Vol 23, 2007, 205-223.
Katja M. Guenther. Making Their Place: Feminism after Socialism in Eastern Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Renny Harrigan, “The German Women’s Movement and Ours,” Jump Cut, no. 27, July 1982, pp. 42-44,
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC27folder/GermUSWmsMovt.html
Elizabeth Rütschi Herrmann, German Women Writers of the Twentieth Century. Pergamon Press, 1978.
Patricia A. Hermingshouse and Magda Mueller (eds.), German Feminist Writings, London: Continuum, 2002.
Zoë Jenny, The Pollen Room (Das Blütenstaubzimmer), 1997.
Marion Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1908-1938
Julia Knight, Women and the New German Cinema, London: Verso, 1992.
Sara Lennox, “Divided Feminism: Women, Racism, and German National Identity,” German Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Oct., 1995), pp. 481-502.
Nancy Lukens and Dorothy Rosenberg, Daughters of Eve: Women’s Writing from German Democratic Republic. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Myra Marx Ferree, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective. Stanford University Press, 2012.
Richard W. McCormick, “Productive Tensions: Teaching Films by German Women and Feminist Film
Theory,” Women in German Yearbook, Vol. 6 (1990), pp. 83-97.
Barbara Mennel, “Local Funding and Global Movement: Minority Women's Filmmaking and the German Film Landscape of the Late 1990s,” Women in German Yearbook, Vol. 18 (2002), pp. 45-66.
Irmtraud Morgner, “The Tightrope” (From: Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz), 1974.
May Opitz, Farbe bekennen: Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
Danielle de Picciotto, The Beauty of Transgression, A Berlin Memoir. Berlin: Gestalten Verlag, 2011.
Danielle de Picciotto, We Are Gypsies Now. Berlin: Walde & Graf, 2013.
Hilke Schlaeger and Nancy Vedder-Shults, “The West German Women's Movement,” New German
Critique, No. 13, Special Feminist Issue (Winter, 1978), pp. 59-68.
Verena Stefan, Shedding (Häutungen), 1994.
Despina Stratigakos, A Woman’s Berlin: Building the Modern City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Yoko Tawada, The Naked Eye, New Directions, 2009.
Heike Trappe, “Review: Putting German Feminism in a Historical Perspective,” Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 12-14.
Chris Weedon, Postwar Women’s Writing in German: Feminist Critical Approaches. New York: Berghahn Books, 1997.
Linda Williams, “Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and the New Documentary,” Film Quarterly. 46.3, 1993. 9-21.
Christa Wolf, “Self Experiment” (“Selbstversuch”), in Erzählungen 1960-1980, Luchterhand, 1999.
Christa Wolf, What remains and other stories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Christa Wolf, Cassandra, Trans. Jan van Heurck. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984 (1983).
Barbara D. Wright, "New Man," Eternal Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism,” The German Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 582-599.

In German:
Carmen-Francesca Banciu. Berlin ist mein Paris: Geschichten aus der Hauptstadt. Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 2007.
Meredith Haaf, Susanne Klingner, and Barbara Streidl, Wir Alphamädchen: Warum Feminismus das Leben schöner macht. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2008.
Irmgaed Keun, Das Kunstseidene Mädchen, Nacht
Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Der Hof im Spiegel. Köln: Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2001.
Bertha Pappenheim, Frauenrecht (available through Projekt Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/frauenrecht-797/1)
Alice Schwarzer, Der "kleine Unterschied" und seine grossen Folgen: Frauen über sich: Beginn einer Befreiung, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997 (1977).
Alice Schwarzer, Lebenslauf, Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2011.
Yoko Tawada, Sprachpolizei und Spielpolyglotte. Tübingen: Konkursbuch Verlag Claudia Gehrke, 2007.
Anne Wizorek, Weil ein #aufschrei nicht reicht: Für einen Feminismus von heute, Fischer Paperback, 2015
  http://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/weil_ein_aufschrei_nicht_reicht/9783596030668
Klaus Wowereit, Und das ist auch gut so: Mein Leben für die Politik, Berlin: Blessing, 2007

Films:
24h Berlin, dir. Volker Heise, 2009
A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma – Eine Frau In Berlin), dir. Max Färberböck, 2008
Barbara, dir. Christian Petzold, 2012
Betongold – Wie die Finanzkrise in mein Wohnzimmer kam, dir. Katrin Rothe, 2013
Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, dir. Uli Edel, 198
The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite), dir. Fatih Akin, 2007
Germany Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter), dir. Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980
Hannah Arendt, dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 2012
In Berlin, dir. Michael Ballhaus and Ciro Cappellari, 2009
The Invisible Frame, dir. Cynthia Beatt, 2009
Die leere Mitte, dir. Hito Steyerl, 1998
Lola, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981
Makin’ Up (Abgeschminkt), dir. Katja von Garnier, 1993
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979
Mariane und Juliane (Die bleierne Zeit), dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1981
Men (Männer), dir. Doris Dörrie, 1985
The Promise (Das Versprechen), dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1995
Rosa Luxemburg, dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1986
Run Lola Run (Lola rennt), dir. Tom Tykwer, 1998.
Shahada, dir. Burhan Qurbani, 2010.
Summer in Berlin (Sommer vorm Balkon), dir. Andreas Dresen, 2005.
Subjektitude, dir. Helke Sander: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOkRy4Q__gE
Torpedo, dir. Helene Hegemann, 2008

Other Resources:
Spiegel, Rebellious Feminists http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/rebellious-new-feminism-returns-to-german-social-discourse-a-904100.html
Feminism in Germany and its history https://europeancollections.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/feminism-in-germany-and-its-history/
Spiegel, Die Alpha-Mädchen http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelspecial/d-55972850.html
"Was sie wirklich will" FOCUS-Umfrage, in Focus Nr. 28/11, 2011
"Wahrheit über Männer" in FOCUS
"Why don’t German Mothers Work?" New York Times, 2011
Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim , Störfall Kind: Frauen in der Planungsfalle
Wir Alphamädchen (book excerpt), Spiegel interview with Meredith Haaf
Chronik der Frauenbewegung http://www.frauenmediaturm.de/themen-portraets/chronik-der-neuen-frauenbewegung/
Frauen Media Turm http://www.frauenmediaturm.de/home/
West German Feminism and the tomato event (Helke Sanders speech at an SDS convention in Frankfurt, where most of the other speakers at the table were men who were ignoring her while she spoke, so someone in the crowd started throwing tomatoes at them) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktionsrat_zur_Befreiung_der_Frauen
Shortly after, a famous "schwanzlos" flyer emerged that came to symbolize all of the hypocrisy by these male protest leaders. http://de.wikimannia.org/images/Frankfurter_Weiberrat_-_Flugblatt_1968_-_Seite_1.jpg
http://www.frauenmediaturm.de/themen-portraets/chronik-der-neuen-frauenbewegung/vorfruehling-1968-1970/flugblatt/

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