German Culture, Media, and Gender

Taught in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Victoria, 2018
Course by Dr. Kat Sark

Course Outline: 

(Subject to changes / in progress)
Week 1
Introduction, Feminist movements (before WWI)

CASE STUDIES: 
Feminist German Studies
Feminism in Germany and its history
Louise Otto-Peters
“woman question”
First feminist newspaper
ADF – German Women’s Association (1869)
August Bebel, Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg
BDF – Federation of Women’s Organizations (1894)
​
READINGS:
  • Myra Marx Ferree, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (2012), Chapter 2
  • Hildegard Kawan and Barbara Weber, “Reflections on a Theme: the German Women’s Movement, Then and Now,” Women’s Studies International Quarterly (1981), pp.421-433
  • Marion Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1908-1938​
FILM: Rosa Luxemburg (dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 1985, 123min)
Week 2 
West-German Feminist Movements (post-WWII)

CASE STUDIES:
Bonn Frauenmuseum
Helke Sander, Sigrid Damm-Rüger and 1968 SDS tomato incident
Subjektitude, dir. Helke Sander

READINGS: 
  • Myra Marx Ferree, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (2012), Chapter 3 
  • Helke Sander, “Speech by the Action Council for Women’s Liberation” (1968), German Feminism: Readings in Politics and Literature (1984), pp. 307-10
  • 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
FILM: Hannah Arendt (dir. Margarethe von Trotta, 2012, 113min)
Week 3
East-German Feminism and German Reunification

CASE STUDIES:
Contrast between East and West gender policies
Angela Merkel
Christa Wolf, What Remains And Other Stories (1993)
Christa Wolf, Cassandra (1983)

READINGS:
  • ​Katja M. Guenther, Making Their Place: Feminism after Socialism in Eastern Germany (2010), Chapter 2
  • Myra Marx Ferree, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (2012), Chapters 6 and 8
  • Dinah Dodds, The Wall In My Backyard: East German Women In Transition, University Of Massachusetts Press, 1995.
    Helen Frink, Women After Communism: The East German Experience. University Press Of America, 2001.
FILM: My Second Life: East German Women in a Changed World (dir. Simone Shoemaker, 1996, 53min)
Week 4
Contemporary German Feminist Media

CASE STUDIES:
Pop-feminism, Net-feminism
Anne Wizorek
#aufschrei and #ausnahmslos (Aufschrei history - tweet archive)
Missy Magazine

READINGS:
  • Hester Baer, “Redoing feminism: digital activism, body politics, and neoliberalism,” Feminist Media Studies (2016), pp.17-34
  • Helga Sadowski, “From #aufschrei to hart.org: Digital-Material Entanglements in the Context of German Digital Feminist Activism.” Feminist Media Studies (2016), pp. 55-69
  • Carrie Smith-Prei and Maria Stehle, Awkward Politics: Technologies of Popfeminist Activism (2016), Chapter 2
Week 5 
Minority Voices

CASE STUDIES:
Emine Sevgi Özdamar 
Yoko Tawada

READINGS:
  • May Ayim, Blues In Black And White: A Collection Of Essays, Poetry And Conversations. Africa World Press, 2003
  • May Opitz, Farbe bekennen: Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (1992) “Editor’s Introduction” pp. xxi-xxv; “Pre-colonial Images of Africa, Colonialism, and Fascism” pp. 3-40 and Afro-German Women poetry​
  • Sara Lennox, “Divided Feminism: Women, Racism, And German National Identity,” German Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Oct. 1995), pp. 481-502.
Week 5 
Documentary Films

CASE STUDIES:
Hito Steyerl
​Betongold (dir. Katrin Rothe, 2013)
The Invisible Frame (dir. Cynthia Beatt, 2009)
​
READINGS:
  • Christina Gerhardt,  “Transnational Germany: Hito Steyerl’s Film Die leere Mitte and Two Hundred Years of Border Crossings,” Women in German Yearbook (2007), pp.205-223
  • Katrina Sark, “Everything We Want and the Documenting of Personal Quests,” Film International (2016), pp.44-58
  • Linda Williams, “Mirrors Without Memories: Truth, History And The New Documentary,” Film Quarterly. 46.3, 1993. 9-21.
FILM: Die leere Mitte, (dir. Hito Steyerl, 1998, 62min)

FILM: Everything We Want (dir. Beatrice Möller, 2013, 70min)
Week 6 
Cinema

CASE STUDIES:
The Edge Of Heaven (Auf Der Anderen Seite, dir. Fatih Akin, 2007)
The Marriage Of Maria Braun (Die Ehe Der Maria Braun, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979)

​READINGS:
  • Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin (1953)​, selections
  • 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
  • Julia Knight, Women And The New German Cinema (1992)
  • Richard W. McCormick, “Productive Tensions: Teaching Films By German Women And Feminist Film Theory,” Women In German Yearbook, Vol. 6 (1990), Pp. 83-97.
FILM: A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma – Eine Frau In Berlin, dir. Max Färberböck, 2008, 127min)
Week 7 
Cinema

CASE STUDIES:
TORPEDO (dir. Helene Hegemann, 2008)
East German Cinema Blog​

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,” Women In German Yearbook, Vol. 18 (2002), Pp. 45-66.
  • Julia Knight, Women and the New German Cinema (1992) 
Week 8​
Music

CASE STUDIES:
Reyhan Şahin (aka “Lady Bitch Ray”)
Conchita Wurst
Sookee
​
READINGS: 
  • ​Reyhan Şahin, Christina Scharff, Carrie Smith-Prei, Maria Stehle, “Riot Grrrls, Bitchism, and pussy power: interview with Reyhan Şahin/Lady Bitch Ray,” Feminist Media Studies (2016), pp. 117-127
​
VIDEO: Sookee, Lex LaFoy & Shirlette Ammons - "Purple Velvet Tour Medley"
 
VIDEO: Shirlette Ammons, Lex LaFoy, Sookee - "This is how we purpleize"

FILM: Sub Berlin - The Story of Tresor
Week 9
Art

CASE STUDIES:
Danielle de Picciotto

READINGS:
  • Danielle de Picciotto, The Beauty of Transgression, A Berlin Memoir, 2011
FILM: In Berlin (dir. Michael Ballhaus and Ciro Cappellari, 2009) 
Week 10
Literature

CASE STUDIES:
Zoë Jenny, The Pollen Room (Das Blütenstaubzimmer, 1997)
Ingeborg Bachmann, Malina (1991)
Yoko Tawada, The Naked Eye (2009)
​
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)  
  • 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
  • Chris Weedon, Postwar Women’s Writing In German: Feminist Critical Approaches. New York: Berghahn Books, 1997.

Bibliography: 

​Baer, Hester. “Redoing feminism: digital activism, body politics, and neoliberalism.” Feminist Media Studies. 16:1, 2016, pp.17-34.
Beachy, Robert.  Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. New York: Knopf, 2012. 
De Picciotto, Danielle. The Beauty of Transgression, A Berlin Memoir. Berlin: Gestalten, 2011.
Ferree, Myra Marx. Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. 
Frieden, Sandra, ed. Gender and German Cinema - Feminist Interventions Oxford: Berg, 1993. 
Gerhardt, Christina. “Transnational Germany: Hito Steyerl’s Film Die leere Mitte and Two Hundred Years of Border Crossings,” Women in German Yearbook. Vol.23, 2007, pp.205-223. 
Guenther, Katja M. Making Their Place: Feminism after Socialism in Eastern Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Kawan, Hildegard and Weber, Barbara. “Reflections on a Theme: the German Women’s Movement, Then and Now.” Women’s Studies International Quarterly. Vol.4, No. 4, 1981, pp.421-433.
Lennox, Sara. “Divided Feminism: Women, Racism, and German National Identity.” German Studies Review. 18:3, Oct., 1995, pp. 481-502. 
Mennel, Barbara. “Local Funding and Global Movement: Minority Women's Filmmaking and the German Film Landscape of the Late 1990s” (2002), pp.45-66. 
Opitz, May, ed. Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
Sadowski, Helga. “From #aufschrei to hart.org: Digital-Material Entanglements in the Context of German Digital Feminist Activism.” Feminist Media Studies. 16:1, 2016, pp. 55-69.
Şahin, Reyhan, Scharff, Christina, Smith-Prei, Carrie and Stehle, Maria. “Riot Grrrls, Bitchism, and Pussy Power: Interview with Reyhan Şahin/Lady Bitch Ray,” Feminist Media Studies. 16:1, 2016, pp. 117-127.
Sark, Katrina. “Everything We Want and the Documenting of Personal Quests.” Film International. 14:1, 2016, pp.44-58.
Smith-Prei, Carrie, and Stehle, Maria. Awkward Politics: Technologies of Popfeminist Activism. Montreal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2016. 
Schlaeger, Hilke and Vedder-Shults, Nancy. “The West German Women's Movement.” New German Critique No.13 Special Feminist Issue, Winter 1978, pp.59-68.
Weber, Beverly M.  “Gender, Race, Religion, Faith? Rethinking Intersectionality in German Feminism,” European  Journal of Women’s Studies. Vol.22, No. 1, 2015, pp.22-36. 
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