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This book focuses on the popular fiction of Weimar Germany and explores the relationship between women, the texts they read, and the society in which they lived. A complex picture emerges that shows women talking center stage, not only in the fiction but also in the reality that shaped its fictional representations. One of the author's significant conclusions is that it was the growing strength of female subjectivity, its strong positioning, and its insistent claim to visibility that occupied the imaginations and fears of Weimar culture and contributed in an important way to the crisis that afflicted the Weimar Republic.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Chapter 1. Mass Culture and Weimar Modernity
Chapter 2. Female Domestication or Marriage, Reproduction, and Family
Bachelor Girls
Reproductive T/Issues
Sex and the Single Girl
Chapter 3. Work and Play
Work in the City
Work on the Land
Play
Chapter 4. Classed Genders and Sexualities
Un/Tamed Female Sexualities
Working Girls
Will the “Real” Woman Stand Up?
In/Visible Classes
Chapter 5. Beyond the Pale – Others, Selves, and Nationhood
Excessively Lesbian
Clarity in Excess?
Pathological Love
Degenerate Eros
Beyond the Pale
The Black Mark
Raced Sexualities
German?/Jewish?
The Power of Assimilation
Body Image
Chapter 6. The Shape of Things Appendix
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
Vibeke Rützou Petersen is the Director of Women's Studies and Associate Professor of German at Drake University
Summary
This book focuses on the popular fiction of Weimar Germany and explores the relationship between women, the texts they read, and the society in which they lived. A complex picture emerges that shows women talking center stage, not only in the fiction but also in the reality that shaped its fictional representations. One of the author's significant conclusions is that it was the growing strength of female subjectivity, its strong positioning, and its insistent claim to visibility that occupied the imaginations and fears of Weimar culture and contributed in an important way to the crisis that afflicted the Weimar Republic.
