The obvious danger of a book like this is that it will trivialize its subject. But I've read the introduction (follow the link for a link to it), and the author seems to have avoided that problem. Indeed, the book looks downright intriguing. Here's the blurb:
Sex after Fascism:That goes right to the top of the list of books that I don't have time to read and so probably won't. Posted by Chris at April 27, 2005 11:32 AM
Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany By Dagmar HerzogWhat is the relationship between sexual and other kinds of politics? Few societies have posed this puzzle as urgently, or as disturbingly, as Nazi Germany. What exactly were Nazism's sexual politics? Were they repressive for everyone, or were some individuals and groups given sexual license while others were persecuted, tormented, and killed? How do we make sense of the evolution of postwar interpretations of Nazism's sexual politics? What do we make of the fact that scholars from the 1960s to the present have routinely asserted that the Third Reich was "sex-hostile"?
In response to these and other questions, Sex after Fascism fundamentally reconceives central topics in twentieth-century German history. Among other things, it changes the way we understand the immense popular appeal of the Nazi regime and the nature of antisemitism, the role of Christianity in the consolidation of postfascist conservatism in the West, the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s-1970s, as well as the negotiations between government and citizenry under East German communism. Beginning with a new interpretation of the Third Reich's sexual politics and ending with the revisions of Germany's past facilitated by communism's collapse, Sex after Fascism examines the intimately intertwined histories of capitalism and communism, pleasure and state policies, religious renewal and secularizing trends.
A history of sexual attitudes and practices in twentieth-century Germany, investigating such issues as contraception, pornography, and theories of sexual orientation, Sex after Fascism also demonstrates how Germans made sexuality a key site for managing the memory and legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust.
Thanks for the recommendation--I think it'll go to the top of my list of "books I really shouldn't read b/c they're not the things I'm *supposed* to be reading, which means I probably will read it because I'm actually intereted in it for its own sake."
Posted by: bitchphd at April 30, 2005 10:28 AMActually, I was sort of wondering if I could pretend that it had something to do with my dissertation. The diss is on Aristotle on pleasure - and sex is pleasurable, right?
Posted by: Chris at April 30, 2005 10:57 AM