Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing
Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing
by Ina Linge
University of Michigan Press, 2023
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-0-472-13306-2
Paper: 978-0-472-03931-9
eISBN: 978-0-472-90266-8 (OA)
About the Book
This book brings together an exciting new archive of queer and trans voices from the history of sexual sciences in the German-speaking world. A new language to express possibilities of gender and sexuality emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, from Sigmund Freud’s theories of homosexuality in Vienna to Magnus Hirschfeld’s “third sex” in Berlin. Together, they provided a language of sex and sexuality that is still recognizable today. Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing shows that individual voices of trans and queer writers had a significant impact on the production of knowledge about gender and sexuality during this time and introduces lesser known texts to a new readership. It shows the remarkable power of queer life writing in imagining and creating the possibilities of a livable life in the face of restrictive legal, medical, and social frameworks.
Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing will be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about LGBTQ+ history and literature. It also provides a fascinating insight into the historical roots for our thinking about gender and sexuality today. The book will be of relevance to an academic readership of students and faculty in German studies, literary studies, European history, and the interdisciplinary fields of gender and sexuality studies, medical humanities, and the history of sexuality.
Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing will be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about LGBTQ+ history and literature. It also provides a fascinating insight into the historical roots for our thinking about gender and sexuality today. The book will be of relevance to an academic readership of students and faculty in German studies, literary studies, European history, and the interdisciplinary fields of gender and sexuality studies, medical humanities, and the history of sexuality.
About the Author
Ina Linge is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Exeter.
Reviews
"It is a wonderful exploration of LGBTQIA+ history and literature as to how gender and sexuality informed a sense of self of those queer and trans individuals who are featured in the corpus texts."— Simone Pfleger, German Studies Review
“Ina Linge's eloquent and theoretically sophisticated book is a welcome contribution to the history of sexuality as well as to literary studies. It shows both the limitations and affordances of autobiographical writing and develops a compelling methodology to examine sexual-scientific life writing that underscores the need to apply the tools of literary criticism to these sources, so that we can fully understand the production of modern gender and sexual identities.”
— Javier Samper Vendrell, Monatshefte"Linge presents a refreshing and valuable analysis of diverse (auto)biographical queer and trans writing in this book. Scholar and students of gender and queer studies will find it inspiring."— Xiaohu Jiang, Journal of European Studies
“This important new book gives voice to the queer and trans subjects who populate the literature of sexual science. Carefully researched, theoretically astute, and at times surprising, Linge’s study is a must-read for anyone interested in the rich and knotted histories of modern sexual science, life writing, and LGBTQ+ history.”— Heike Bauer, Birkbeck College, University of London
Tags
Social History, Popular Culture, And Politics In Germany, Gender identity in literature, Sex (Psychology), Europe German-speaking, Life Writing, LGBTQ+ Studies, Germany, Psychology, Europe, History and criticism, Social Science, History
Open Access Information
License: CC BY
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