Gender and Sexuality in Nazi Germany

Catalog description

In this upper-division examination of the nature of Nazi society and Fascism more generally, the central focus will be on gender--the images of and attitudes towards masculinity and femininity, and alternative sexualities, in the Third Reich. Changes in the role afforded to men and women, and in beliefs about what it means to be male and female, were at the very center of the revolutionary changes that constituted the shift to the "Modern Era." In seeking to understand Fascist attitudes toward gender, therefore, the course is seeking to understand not some peripheral aspect of Nazi society, but its very core, the very essence of modern democracy and its nemesis, Fascism. Much attention will be focused on developing skill in understanding and interpreting films and other visual artifacts and how they reveal ideals and assumptions about gender. Cross-listed as HIST/ GST 317 . Code 1. G.