SEXUALITY IN 18TH CENTURY GERMANY DISCUSSED IN WHITMANPROFESSOR'S BOOK ON "QUEER THEORY AND THE AGE OF GOETHE"
WALLA WALLA, Wash.-- Eighteenth century German literature is scrutinized through the lens of queer theory by Robert Tobin in his new book, "Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe," published this year by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Queer theory, said Tobin, associate professor of German and associate dean of faculty at Whitman College, is a concept that grew out of gay and lesbian studies but is much more flexible and encompasses all kinds of intermediate types of sexuality. Analyzing the classical literature of Germany in the late 1700s using queer theory involved reading it "against the grain" with an eye toward uncovering the different sexual subcultures that thrived in that time and place.
One of the first books to document male-male desire in 18th century German literature and culture, "Warm Brothers" illuminates how this period influenced modern conceptualization of sexuality. Many of the beliefs about sexuality that evolved in the age of Goethe came to the United States with German immigrants, especially those who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, said Tobin.
Written primarily for a scholarly audience, the book began as individual articles and gradually evolved to its present form. "I've studied Goethe my whole scholarly life, beginning with writing my dissertation on him. Eventually I began looking at this subject matter that I knew so well and wanting to connect it to issues that were personally relevant to me. Fortunately, there hadn't been a lot done on sexuality with these authors (Goethe and his contemporaries), so I was able to fill that niche."
Tobin hopes to write for a more broader audience in his next book, which will look at "sexuality and nationality" in Germany from 1870 to 1930. Germany became a nation in 1871, just two years after the word homosexual appears for the first time in any written language. (Before that time, there really did not exist a vocabulary for sexuality as we know it.) "I want to take off from that point and see if the construction of the German nation is somehow related to the construction of modern categories of sexuality." Tobin studied sexuality and nationality previously on a Fulbright Fellowship in the spring and summer of 2000.
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CONTACT: Lenel Parish, Whitman College News Service, (509) 527-5156 [email protected]
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