Description
Book SynopsisThe first complete English translation of Viennese philosopher Otto Weininger's notorious treatise on gender, sexuality and race.
Trade ReviewThis long-awaited new translation of Austrian thinker Otto Weininger's masterwork, Sex and Character (1903), is simply splendid. Accurate, graceful, and complete—three qualities no other English translation can boast—it is light years beyond all previous translations. Why is this book a big deal, and why should one care about it? For one thing, because it encapsulates Viennese intellectual life around the turn of the 20th century insofar as it reflects the thinking of other intellectuals and artists—Freud, Kraus, and Broch, to mention three. But the more important reason is intrinsic: it raises questions about modernity, race, identity, gender, and fascism, questions that are still at the center of cultural debate. Those interested in European history and thought, cultural and literary studies, and race and gender theory will find this book indispensable. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. —M. Uebel, University of TexasNovember 2005
* Choice *
Still often cited—but rarely read—as the locus classicus of the fin-de-siècle convergence of misogynistic and antisemitic discourses in the figure of the feminized Jew, O. Weininger's 1903 best-selling revised dissertation has found its first complete English translation. . . This edition affords the English-speaking reader the opportunity to better understand the claims . . . that Sex and Character is not just an encyclopedia of anti-Jewish and anti-female stereotypes, but of early twentieth century philosophic and scientific cultures as well. Recommended for scholars, graduate and advanced undergraduate students examining the underpinnings and undersides of modernity.
* Religious Studies Review *
[T]here are not that many great weird books. Sex and Character . . . is one of them. The appearance . . . of a definitive English translation published by Indiana University Press is a major cultural event. . .In short, Weininger's introspective exploration of the cosmic meaning of gender leads him to the depths of the anti-Semitic imagination. Which makes his book a kind of rough guide to the inner world of another Austrian figure who would later leave his mark on the world, Adolf Hitler. Twenty years ago, Gerald Steig, an Austrian writer, called Sex and Character 'the psychological-metaphysical prelude for National Socialism, including its variants.'. .
* Insde higher Ed *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
A Book That Won't Go Away: Otto Weininger's Sex and Character Daniel Steuer
Translator's Note Ladislaus Löb
Preface
First (Preparatory) Part: Sexual Diversity
Introduction
I. "Men" and "Women"
II. Arrhenoplasm and Thelyplasm
III. Laws of Sexual Attraction
IV. Homosexuality and Pederasty
V. Characterology and Morphology
VI. Emancipated Women
Second or Main Part: The Sexual Types
I. Man and Woman
II. Male and Female Sexuality
III. Male and Female Consciousness
IV. Endowment and Genius
V. Endowment and Memory
VI. Memory, Logic, Ethics
VII. Logic, Ethics, and the Self
VIII. The Problem of the Self and Genius
IX. Male and Female Psychology
X. Motherhood and Prostitution
XI. Eroticism and Aesthetics
XII. The Nature of Woman and Her Purpose in the Universe
XIII. Judaism
XIV. Woman and Humanity
Appendix: Additions and References
Index
