LIiterary Gender Studies

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This graduate course will be taught in German. The seminar Literary Gender Studies introduces students to central questions, theoretical approaches, and methodological tools of Gender Studies, with a clear focus on their relevance and application within German Studies scholarship and literary scholarship more generally. The foundational insight is that the binary gender roles of “male” and “female” are not biologically predetermined categories, but rather socially and culturally constructed. This critical perspective forms the basis for an in-depth exploration of gender as a dynamic, historically contingent, and discursively shaped phenomenon. At the heart of the seminar lies the literary-critical question of how gender is constructed, staged, negotiated, and challenged within texts. We examine how works in the German literary canon– from the Enlightenment through Romanticism and Modernism to the present – engage with gender identities, relations, and dynamics, either reproducing, questioning, or subverting dominant norms. The focus extends beyond the mere representation of male and female characters to an analysis of the linguistic, narrative, structural, and aesthetic mechanisms through which gender is produced in literature. What roles do narrative perspectives, first-person positions, stylistic choices, genre conventions, or temporal structures play? How are embodiment, sexuality, emotion, and social roles shaped within literary texts? Students engage with key theoretical texts in gender studies – from Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler to contemporary perspectives in postcolonial and trans* gender theory – and apply these models to a carefully selected range of German-language literary texts spanning different historical periods and genres: novels and short stories, dramatic works, and poetry. Special attention is paid to the interplay between literary form and gender construction: How does genre (e.g., the love novel, the Bildungsroman, drama) shape the representation of gender? How have gender representations evolved over time, and in what ways do literary depictions reflect broader social and cultural transformations? Particular attention is paid, for example, to the Bildungsroman (such as Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre or Gustav Freytag’s Soll und Haben) as a genre that emerges in the late eighteenth century and becomes central to German bourgeois narratives of identity. By placing the bourgeois subject at the center, the Bildungsroman often produces predominantly male identity formations deeply embedded in the bourgeois gender order. Gender and cultural alterity play a crucial role in these processes. How do literary texts situate gender and the family within larger narratives about nationhood and Germanness? Beyond intensive close reading, the seminar emphasizes critical engagement with literary and cultural-historical contexts: How have gender roles been institutionalized in specific historical periods from the Enlightenment to the present, and how do literary texts reflect, reinforce, or resist these societal norms? What roles did literary canon formation, publishing practices, reviews, and audience expectations play in the production and reception of gendered representations? (cf. Schößler/Wille: Einführung in die Gender Studies) Additional focus is placed on questions of genre tradition, literary form, and reception history, in order to grasp the full complexity and diversity of literature’s engagement with gender. A central aim of the seminar is to highlight the significance, relevance, and urgency of Gender Studies for literary scholarship. Students learn to critically reflect on how theoretical concepts such as “performativity,” “heteronormativity,” or “intersectionality” can be applied to concrete texts and how they open up new interpretive possibilities for both canonical and contemporary literary works. The goal is not only to develop a solid theoretical understanding but also to cultivate the ability to enrich and deepen literary analysis through a gender-theoretical lens. Through the integration of theoretical reflection, historical contextualization, close textual analysis, and methodological diversity, the seminar aims to provide a solid foundation for independent, critical, and interdisciplinary research in literary gender studies.