German Feminist Writings (German Library) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826412815 ISBN 13: 9780826412812

Publisher: Continuum, 2001

Synopsis

This collection is organized in five part: Education for Girls and Women; Women and Work; Women and Politics; Issues of Gender; and Women in Art and Literature. It includes more than 90 excerpts by some 50 women writers. Among the author included are Annette von Droste-Hnlshoff (1797-1848), Fanny Lewald (1811-1889), Louise Otto-Peters (1819-1895), Marie Freirfrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916), Hedwig Dohm (1833-1919), Helene Lang (1848-1930), Lily Braun (1865-1916), Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919) and many more.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia A. Herminghouse is on the editorial board of The German Library and teaches at the University of Rochester.Magda Mueller teaches in the department of foreign languages, California State University, Chico.

From Library Journal:

The Socialist government of the former East Germany provided women with what liberal feminists in Western democracies presumably want: affordable childcare, legalized abortion, and equal employment opportunities. In her lucid, lively study of feminist East German authors, Martens (German, Univ. of Virginia) shows why these offerings were not enough. According to Marxist doctrine, gender inequality would vanish with the abolition of a class system. Yet important East German women like novelist Christa Wolf insisted on women's difference rather than celebrating the abstract ideals of absolute equality as promulgated by the Socialist state. Since it was forbidden to question the overriding significance attributed to class struggle, feminism never became a popular movement in East Germany, and women's literature passed government censors only when it treated women's issues as a secondary concern. Martens explains that East German feminist writing had to resign itself to pointing out the apparently "contradictory" instances of inequality that remained under socialism. Nonetheless, East German feminist writers could draw on a range of precursors. Some of their work is now usefully available in an expansive collection edited by Herminghouse and Mueller. These writings, including those by well-known figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Bertha Pappenheim (Freud's famous patient "Anna O."), cover concerns ranging from education, work, and politics to art and literature. Regrettably, the editors, who have published collections of works by German women writers like Ingeborg Bachmann, chose to exclude early feminist male-authored texts by Friedrich Engels, Johann Bachhofen, and August Bebel that Martens holds significant for an understanding of feminism anywhere. Still, this anthology is an important addition for research libraries, while Martens's book is recommended for academic libraries and specialized collections in women's writing. Ulrich Baer, New York Univ.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0826412815
• ISBN 13: 9780826412812
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Herminghouse Patricia A., Mueller Magda