The Book

Overview

German Expressionism has been dominated by the works of men—in the visual arts and literary texts, as well as in the secondary literature. The movement was largely defined through poetry included in Kurt Pinthus’s seminal collection Menschheitsdämmerung (1920), in which Else Lasker-Schüler was the sole female voice to appear alongside many key male figures. Despite the excavation of Expressionist works by women in recent decades, scholarly research on these artworks and texts remains lacking. Few female Expressionists in the German context have received sustained attention, except for Lasker-Schüler and, to some degree, Claire Goll and Henriette Hardenberg. As a result, works by male artists and authors continue to characterize the canon a century after the Expressionist decade of 1910-1920.

Although female figures are prevalent in the works of male Expressionists, particularly in the roles of the New Woman, mother, and prostitute, their possibilities for self-expression and self-sufficiency are decidedly limited in these works. This collection of articles explores females’ self-conceptions and representations of women’s roles in society in their own Expressionist works. Oskar Kokoschka’s depiction of a brutal “battle of the sexes” in his 1907 play Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen introduced a motif that was taken up by many male Expressionists. But how did women interpret this “battle” and depict gender relations? How did women approach themes commonly considered to be characteristic of the Expressionist movement, and did they address other themes or aesthetics and styles not currently represented in the canon? How do the language and imagery employed by female Expressionists compare to that of their male counterparts? Is the historical and socio-political context reflected differently in the writings of women and men? In what ways do intersections of race, class and gender play a role? Finally, how might the consideration of female texts and artworks enrich our understanding and/or alter our definition of German Expressionism? Do current perceptions and receptions of German Expressionism shift once the works of woman artists and authors are more thoroughly taken into consideration?

This collection of critical essays addresses these and other questions, deepening nascent inquiries into female Expressionists. Most importantly, this collection seeks to broaden the theorization, scholarship, and reception of German Expressionism by—finally and much belatedly—including works by women, and by shifting or redefining firmly established concepts and topics carrying only the imprint of male authors and artists to this day. While there is renewed interest in women artists of the period, the female authors remain largely unknown, unpublished, and unexamined. This presents a significant and alarming gap in the research and reception of German Expressionism, as women authors were prolific, right alongside the much-discussed male figures, and the archives are full of their materials. However, since the canon has fossilized German Expressionism as marked by a number of characteristics devoid of female voices or advanced gender theorization, very few have challenged this staid reception. This collection presents and analyzes these voices, integrates them into the canon productively and thereby changes the reception of and future scholarship on German Expressionism in the 21st century.

Table of Contents

§  Introduction: Flipping the Prostitute: German Expressionism Reexamined after 100 Years (Anke Finger and Julie Shoults)

§  Intimate Strangers: Women in German Expressionism (Barbara Wright)

Situating Female Authors in the Expressionist Movement:

§  Elsa Asenijeff and German Expressionism (Curtis Swope)

§  Between Bohemian Brotherhood and the New Man: On Gender and Writing in F. Gräfin zu Reventlow’s Herrn Dames Aufzeichnungen (1913) (Carola Daffner)

§  “Wenn man eine Frau ist”: Female Protagonists as Social Revolutionaries (Corinne Painter)

§  On Their Own: Reconsidering Marianne Werefkin and Gabriele Münter (Katy Klaasmeyer)

Gender & the Body:

§  Somaesthetics, Gender, and the Body as Media in Claire Goll’s Racialized Expressionism (Anke Finger)

§  Gender, Sexuality and the Makeup of Feminine Beauty: Viennese Expressionist Ceramics and the Wieselthier Frauenkopf (Megan Brandow-Faller)

§  The Ecstasies of Mela Hartwig-Spira: Between Laughter and Terror (Aleksandra Kudryashova)

Sexuality – Beyond Mothers and Prostitutes:

§  Resituating Lu Märten’s Manifesto of Matriarchal Socialism within Expressionist Debates (Douglas Brent McBride)

§  Emmy Hennings: The Human Being as Woman (Nicole Shea)

§  Writing the Inner Strife: Emmy Hennings’s Das Brandmal. Ein Tagebuch (1920) (Mirjam Berg)

Social Issues & Activism:

§  “The Time is Coming”: Women Writers in the Expressionist Journal Die Aktion (1911-1932) (Catherine Smale)

§  Expressionism and “Female Insanity”: The Lives and Works of Else Blankenhorn (1873-1920) and Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899-1940) (Daniela Müller)

§  Empathy for Outsiders in Women’s Expressionist Literature (Julie Shoults)