This essay examines the circumstances of the production and appearance of East Germany’s first film about homosexuality (the short documentary “Die andere Liebe” or “The Other Love”), while considering the role it plays in our understanding of the development of German lesbian and gay history. More specifically, this essay provides a reading of…[Read more]

The German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) had an ambivalent relationship with homosexuality. Under the principles of socialism, everyone was welcome to contribute to the greater good. The situation for queer people, here lesbians and gay men, was different: one of illegality and invisibility. A difficulty in analyzing these experiences is…[Read more]

“This essay argues that German regional crime fiction is both a modern development and simultaneously a recollection of crime fiction’s journalistic and literary beginnings. …[R]egional crime fiction has connections to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Fallgeschichten (case stories) that fascinated a developing reading public and satisfied…[Read more]

Historical entry on the Finnish revolution of 1917-1918

Film critique of “Return to Go” (“Zurück auf los”), directed by Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss.

Film critique of “Lola and Billy the Kid” (“Lola und Bilidikid”), directed by Kutlug Ataman.

Biographical entry on Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Biographical entry on Magnus Hirschfeld

A selected survey of gender and sexuality in German-language literature of the long 19th century

The Reality of the Body: Transgender, Transsexuality, and Truth in “Romeos”

Coming Out of the Iron Closet: Contradiction in East German Gay History and Film

This essay focuses on advanced-level German instruction and advocates an open, flexible approach to integrating the recommendations of the much-discussed 2007 MLA report on “Foreign Languages and Higher Education.” Specifically, language, literature, film, and cultural studies are combined to allow for the development of transcultural com…[Read more]

Critical essay on two films: “Ludwig van Beethoven” (1954) and “Beethoven – Tage aus einem Leben” (1976). Released with the DVD “A Beethoven Duet” by the DEFA Film Library.