Gendering Modern German History

by Hagemann, Karen; Quataert, Jean H.

• ISBN13: 9781845454425
• ISBN10: 1845454421
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-08-01
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

Writing on the history of German women has - like women's history elsewhere - undergone remarkable expansion and change since it began in the late 1960s. Today Women's history still continues to flourish alongside gender history but the focus of research has increasingly shifted from women to gender. This shift has made it possible to make men and masculinity objects of historical research too. After more than thirty years of research, it is time for a critical stocktaking of the''gendering'' of the historiography on nineteenth and twentieth century Germany. To provide a critical overview in a comparative German-American perspective is the main aim of this volume, which brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic. They discuss in their essays the state of historiography and reflect on problems of theory and methodology. Through compelling case studies, focusing on the nation and nationalism, military and war, colonialism, politics and protest, class and citizenship, religion, Jewish and non-Jewish Germans, the Holocaust, the body and sexuality and the family, this volume demonstrates the extraordinary power of the gender perspective to challenge existing interpretations and rewrite mainstream arguments.

Author Biography

Karen Hagemann is the James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on modern German and European History and Gender History, in particular the history of labor, welfare, and education, the women's movements, and the nation, military, and war.

Jean H. Quataert is Professor of German History and Women's Studies at Binghamton University, SUNY. Her research focuses on the history of the labor movement, the history of nation and gender, and most recently human rights history and global women's history in 19th and 20th century.