Exploring the transformative period in European history, this course examines the turbulent Weimar Republic through the lens of Berlin's 'roaring twenties' and with particular reference to the history of sexuality and the life of the Jewish sex reformer Magnus Hirschfeld, who travelled the globe as the 'Einstein of Sex' and who became a prime target of Nazi oppression as the Weimar Republic collapsed in the early s.
Weimar Berlin offers an illuminating window onto Europe's past and present ambivalences regarding democracy, liberalism, modernity, social and sexual change. Weimar Berlin was a peculiar place. It was where deep cultural pessimism after a crushing defeat in World War 1 existed alongside an intoxicating atmosphere of novelty and daring experimentation.
Along with art and entertainment, s Berlin became in famous as the sexual capital of Europe. This course will use the debates and dynamics concerning sex in this period as lens through which to understand the wider history of interwar Europe, modernity, democracy and totalitarianism.
Its first half will focus will the history and historiography of Weimar Germany and Berlin in which films from the period will play a leading role. The second half of the course will zoom in on the life, work and sociotope of Magnus Hirschfeld, the gay, Jewish and socialist sex reformer who championed sexual rights in general and those of the queer and trans communities more particularly.
This course will guide you through each phase of the research process, from designing a project, to conducting the actual research and writing out the results in line with academic conventions.
