Description
Book SynopsisThis book is a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary collection of essays by some of today’s most forward-thinking scholars. The contributors explore the ways in which the prefix «trans» erupts German identity and the identity of Germany itself. The volume calls German identity into question and examines the ways in which the prefix «trans» is deployed to these ends in relation to national borders, historical limits, political institutions, social practices, and forms of cultural and aesthetic expression. The collection reveals the ways in which the transcendence of national, corporeal, disciplinary, and institutional limits is embodied by the use of the prefix «trans»– and has the potential to do so much more.
The volume engages the multifaceted nature of «trans»– and a Germanness that defies geography – to explore how Germans and Germany are increasingly situated «beyond» limits. Collectively, these investigations reveal a radical discourse of Germanness, a discourse with significant implications for historical and contemporary German self-understanding.The book asks the following: What is German identity beyond geography? And what are the promises and perils for Germany, and German identity, in becoming transGerman?
Trade Review«This engaging and groundbreaking book highlights how creative difference, non-stasis, and polyvalent identity – across a number of trans-Germanic medial texts and cultural contexts –might reconfigure today’s reactionary world into a new revolutionary place of social and political emancipation.» (Mirko M. Hall, Professor and Chair of Languages, Cultures, and Literatures, Converse College)
Table of ContentsCONTENTS: Thomas O. Haakenson: Introduction: What is «Becoming TransGerman»? – Tirza True Latimer: What Can Trans Do? – Barış Ülker: Going Beyond Spatial and Cultural Fixities Through Ernst Reuter’s Photographic Encounters in Turkey – Kristen Ann Ehrenberger: Autopsy, Authority and Affect: Body Voyaging in Anatomical Fairy Tales from 1920s-1940s Germany – Josch Hoenes: Mit Schmetterlingen denken: Der transvestitische Mensch in Magnus Hirschfelds Bilderteil zur Geschlechtskunde (Thinking with Butterflies: Transvestite Humans in Magnus Hirschfelds Illustrated Volume
Sexual Science) – Ute Ritz-Deutch: TransGerman Experiences in Southern Brazil: The Stutzer Family in Blumenau, 1885-1887 – Thomas O. Haakenson: Transnational Dada and the Politics of Postcolonialism – Nichole Neuman: The Archive and Writing (German) Film History – Mine Eren: A Ghostly Matter:
Almanya: Welcome to Germany as Transnational Feminist Film Praxis – Jennifer Miller: Instructional Visions: German Visual Messages to the First Generation of Turkish Guest Workers – Anson Koch-Rein: TransGerman Drag:
Travestie für Deutschland, Homonationalisms, and Transgender Citizenship – Deborah Barton/Karin Goihl/Thomas O. Haakenson/Carol Hager/Tirza True Latimer: Berlin Workshop 5th Anniversary Discussion: Why «Becoming TransGerman» Matters Now More Than Ever.
