Gender and Sexuality in Weimar Modernity: Film, Literature, and “New Objectivity”

by Richard W. McCormick

Richard McCormick takes a fresh look at the crisis of gender in Weimar Germany through the analysis of selected cultural texts, both literary and film, characterized under the label 'New Objectivity'. The 'New Objectivity' was characterized by a sober and unsentimental embrace of urban modernity, in contract to Expressionism's horror of technology and belief in 'auratic' art. This movement was profoundly gendered - the epitome of the 'New Objectivity' was the 'New Woman' - working, sexually emancipated, and unsentimental. The book traces the crisis of gender identities, both male and female, and reveals how a variety of narratives of the time displaced an assortment of social anxieties onto sexual relations.

Genres: History, Gender Studies, Literary Criticism

250 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2002

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid critical examination. McCormick does a great job of showing Weimar in its complexity, contradiction and profundity. He's repetitive, but his overview and critique of the critical literature is good and his contributions to the discussion are very thought-provoking. His analysis seems sound and detailed while eschewing any overbearing readings; the ambiguities and tensions within the examined works remain present and worth pursuing even further.