Courses

European (and more locally, German) modernity has been thoroughly shaped by its concepts and
imaginations of gender and sexuality, as deeply entangled with each other as well as racialized
notions of culture and religion. Conceptual claims and fantasies about differences between men
and women and a spectrum of sexualities, often connected to distinctions between West and East
or Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions worked to configure—as well as contest—individual
and collective identities throughout the moments of modernism, fascism, and the Cold War. The
1968 “sexual revolution,” second and third wave feminisms, queer and trans* activism, and the
contemporary realities of immigration and globalization have challenged and regrouped these
cultural fictions of identity, without ever entirely undoing them. And in the twenty-first century,
some of these fictions have had forceful comebacks, not limited to but including in contexts of
right-wing populism, “anti-gender” activism, and political conflict around “identity politics.”

The course starts from this contemporary renaissance of cultural fictions of identity and
proceeds to deepen and anchor their analysis in the study of selected historical paradigms and
texts, before returning to our present moment towards the end of the semester. We will draw on
an interdisciplinary range of materials, including literature and film, philosophical, scholarly, and
socio-political materials. Geographically, the emphasis is on German and German-language
contexts within the larger frames of Europe, post/colonialism and globalization. The course is
taught in English, and all required materials will be available in English or with English subtitles.
However, Germanic Languages and Literatures students (& other German speakers) will be
encouraged to read aesthetic and philosophical texts in the original German and explore
additional materials for research assignments in German. Other linguistic competencies can be
similarly put to use in comparative assignments.