Weekly Schedule, Texts, Submission Links...
Here, you can find all the homework readings, submission links, and more. Readings and other assignments have to be finished by the day they are listed here. Make sure to be logged into your Carleton account before clicking on links. Sometimes, links will send you to our Moodle page, sometimes to the library to download a document, sometimes to a google form that is hosted behind our username-log-in-wall.
Week 1
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today we will get to know each other and ourselves.
- submit before class
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will learn more about the time and place of our topic of study.
- reading material
- theory:
- Read the following text and take notes of/highlight the most important pieces of information. You will need these notes/highlights in class. Pay attention to the questions I pose about the text but also follow your own interests in your note taking.
- Hofmann, Paul. The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight and Exile. New York, 1988. (excerpts, 35 pages)
- Pay attention to these questions: What is the city of opposites? What are important points of the history of Vienna? What important facts should we remember about the coffeehouse culture? How did the revolution 1848 go in Vienna? What should we remember about the Ringstraße and the "old guard" of artists? What is the Ringstraße style? What are some artists from the old guard? Who is the new guard of artists? What is Jung Wien? What is the Secession? What happened after the Secession split? What are some important names? What are important political issues of Vienna at the time? What are important names and what should we know about them?
- Hofmann, Paul. The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight and Exile. New York, 1988. (excerpts, 35 pages)
- Read the following reviews (one is about the book from which you just read an excerpt). What topics come up in the reviewed books? What do you notice about the genre of the review?
- David. S. Luft’s Eros and Inwardness in Vienna. Weininger, Musil, Doderer, by Allan Janik, Central European History, vol. 37, no. 2 (2004): 309-311.
- Paul Hofmann’s The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight and Exile, by Harry Zohn, Modern Austrian Literature vol. 23, no. 1 (1990): pp. 186-187.
- Carl E. Schorske’s Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, by Barry M. Katz, New German Critique, no. 20 (Spring/Summer 1980): 198-201.
- Read the following text and take notes of/highlight the most important pieces of information. You will need these notes/highlights in class. Pay attention to the questions I pose about the text but also follow your own interests in your note taking.
- theory:
- submit before class
Week 2
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will understand why we study what we study in this class and how we can draw connections with other realms of our lives.
- reading material
- theory:
- Le Rider, Jacques. “Reflections on Viennese Modernity,” Modernity and Crises of Identity. Culture and Society in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, 11-29, Jacques Le Rider, Continuum, 1990.
- This text is dense and needs your slow reading. It discusses the myth (or the assumption of the myth) of Austrian Modernity. It will help you understand general trends in Viennese Modernism and point you to a few interesting developments that will help us understand the artistic developments better. Names of people are not overly important during your reading, but they can help you follow your own interests in the subject matter. While you read for the first time, highlight important pieces of information within the paragraphs. During your second reading, consolidate these highlights into notes that show these trends for you in a structured way. Don’t necessarily follow the author’s structure of the ideas, but group pieces of information under the subtitles into your own order. Add page information to your information/quotes, so you can find the information easier in the text when we discuss it.
- Le Rider, Jacques. “Reflections on Viennese Modernity,” Modernity and Crises of Identity. Culture and Society in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, 11-29, Jacques Le Rider, Continuum, 1990.
- theory:
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will remind ourselves of or learn anew some basic ideas about gender theory so we have a working foundation for the texts we will be accessing in this class. These theories originated after 1900 and outside of Vienna but they help us work with the time and place of our course. You will read one main text and also a few reviews to see what else is out there.
- reading material
- theory:
- From The Second Sex, by Simone De Beauvoir, New York: Vintage Books, 1949: “Introduction by Judith Thurman” (pp. 8-15) and “Introduction” (pp. 23-39).
- @RebeccaRHelm (Open Ocean Exploration). “Friendly neighborhood biologist here…” Twitter, 19 Dec. 2019.
- Review of Steven Seidman, Nancy Fischer, and Chet Meeks’s edited Introducing the New Sexuality Studies, by Jennifer Miller and George Mason, Teaching Sociology vol. 41, no. 4 (Oct. 2013): 389-391.
- Review of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, by Karin A. Martin, Gender and Society vol. 5, no. 3, Special Issue: Marxist Feminist Theory (Sept. 1991): 420-421.
- theory:
Week 3
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will discuss the image of women in Vienna of the time and some visions of feminism that were circulating.
- reading material
- theory:
- Ask yourself before you start reading: How would you define women’s emancipation?
- Anderson, Harriet. “Introduction: Moral Missionaries and Hysterical Hermaphrodites. Feminist and Anti-Feminist Perspectives in Vienna around 1900,” Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Harriet Anderson, 1-22, Yale University Press, 1992.
- Answer the following questions while reading: 1) How was the ideal/ not modern woman defined at the time? 2) What was the situation of women in the Habsburg Empire? 3) What do we know about anti-feminism, particularly when it comes to conservatives, artists, and scientists? 4) What do we know about organized feminism in the 1890s? 5) What do we know about the visionary feminists Auguste Fickert and Marianne Hainisch?
- Review of Steven Beller’s Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938. A Cultural History and Robert S. Wistrich’s The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph, by Frank Field, The English Historical Review, vol. 108 no. 426 (Jan. 1993): 245-246.
- Review of Jacques Le Rider’s Modernité Viennoise et Crises de L’identité (Modernity and Crises of Identity), by Ritchie Robertson, The Modern Language Review, vol. 87, no. 1 (Jan. 1992): 258-260.
- primary text:
- Gustav Klimt, 1888, Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater
- What do you see?
- Gustav Klimt, 1888, Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater
- theory:
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will work on the second draft of your reviews and also help you brainstorm for your final project.
- bring to class
- a print out of/ link to your review A, draft 1
Week 4
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Last Tuesday, we discussed the image and problems of women in Vienna around 1900. Today, we will discuss one particular woman and her work in this context. Before you read the text, please look at the artworks for today, which can be found in the text. Write down in your notes: What do you see, in detail? How do you interpret what you see? Only then go to the actual text.
- reading material:
- theory:
- Johnson, Julie M. “Teresa Ries in the Memory Factory.” The Memory Factory: The Forgotten Women Artists of Vienna 1900, 203-241, Julie M. Johnson, Purdue University Press, 2012.
- primary texts:
- Teresa Ries Sleepwalker (1894), Witch (1895), Lucifer (1897), Eve (1909) (in above pdf)
- theory:
- submit before class
Thursday
- Goal: Last session, we looked at a female artist who tried to break the constraints of a patriarchal world. Today, we will go into literature and consider an author who was concerned with the effects of modernity on the family. First, read the story by Emilie Mataja from 1892. Then, read the contemporary documentary about Ashley from Atlanta. Both stories are hard to read. Take breaks when you need to and give yourself enough time to digest the material. If you want, explore more stories on Ariane Audet’s Faces of PostPartum Blog - most of the stories presented there are really tough to read but are very worth your time and energy. When you read both Mataja’s story and the story about Ashley in Atlanta, think about connections between these two stories and others that come to mind.
- reading material
- primary texts:
- Emilie Mataja “Die Kindheit - ein Paradies," originally published in the Wiener Literaturblatt vol. 23, no. 6 (1892) (2.5 pages)
- Audet, Ariane. “Story #112 - Motherhood Beyond Bars + Ashley, Atlanta GA (USA).” Faces of PostPartum, 8 March 2022. (37 pages)
- primary texts:
- submit before class
Week 5
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will discuss the representation of gender in a play by the Jewish Arthur Schnitzler, who was part of the Jung Wien movement.
- reading material
- theory:
- Rose, Alison. “Introduction.” Jewish Women in Fin de Siècle Vienna, Alison Rose, 1-7. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2008.
- theory:
- primary texts:
- Schnitzler, Arthur. Reigen. (1897/1900) -> Scenes 1-5 (until p. 23)
- primary texts:
- submit before class
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will continue with Schnitzler’s Reigen. We will continue to focus on the characters and spaces and will draw conclusions about Viennese society at the time.
- reading material
- primary texts:
- Schnitzler, Arthur. Reigen. (1897/1900) -> Scenes 6-10 (pp. 23-52)
- Bring two specific text examples to class that you want to discuss. Write down all your thoughts for these examples as if you wanted to use them for a final paper analysis/interpretation.
- primary texts:
- submit before class
Week 6
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will look into gender issues in the musical world to then move on to discuss one female musician and her work in particular on Thursday.
- reading material
- theory:
- All students read: Kallberg, Jeffrey. “Gender and Music.” Grove Music Online, 20 Jan. 2001. (6 pages)
- For the next two texts, you will be divided into two reading groups. You will find the text you are assigned to through the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your (first) last name. If you are unsure what group you are in, let me know!
- group 1 (SG, OH, EM, CV) reads: Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1993: pp. 54-71.
- Answer the following questions while reading: 1) What were internal and external struggles that female composers may face that makes composing hard or impossible? 2) Which female composers were mentioned that can be relevant to our timeframe and what do we know about them from the text? 3) What are the reasons that the text suggests for women composing? 4) What advantages had women over men when they were composing?
- group 2 (IM, TT, EG, SH) reads: Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1993: pp. 80-100.
- Answer the following questions while reading: 1) What is professionalism (definition, goals, succession through the times, assumptions about professionalism)? 2) Why are there so few women who became professionals in composition? 3) What are issues with the term “woman composer”? 4) What do we know about 19th-century woman composers?
- theory:
- submit before class
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will look at one woman composer in Vienna around 1900, Alma Mahler, who was almost forgotten next to her husband Gustav Mahler who has been one of the most famous composers of all time.
- reading material
- theory:
- Hilmes, Oliver. “Prologue.” and “Childhood and Youth.“ from Malevolent Muse: the Life of Alma Mahler, by Oliver Hilmes, translated by Donald Arthur. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press, 2015. (originally Witwe im Wahn, 2005) (37 pages)
- theory:
- primary texts:
- Alma Mahler-Werfel, Five Songs (published 1910) (13 mins)
- Write down your general impressions of the music/ special impressions of certain Lieder. How do text and music work together? What does the text want to express, and what the music? Which Lied do you like the most, why?
- Alma Mahler-Werfel, Five Songs (published 1910) (13 mins)
- primary texts:
- submit before class
Week 7
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will discuss our final projects. Please prepare your first draft of the first part of your project thoroughly so you can bring it to class and get helpful feedback.
- bring to class
- a print out of/ link to your project A, draft 1
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will go into the world of painting, to one of the most famous painters of the time: Gustav Klimt. He came from the “old” generation of artists and founded a movement for the “new” generation that then broke off into “newer” later. We will concern ourselves with Klimt himself and the image of women he produced in some of his works. On a skill level, we will practice the skill of observation.
- reading material
- theory:
- Sármány-Parsons, Ilona. “The Image of Women in Painting: Clichés and Reality in Austria-Hungary, 1895–1905.” Rethinking Vienna 1900, edited by Beller Steven, 220-63. New York: Berghahn Books, 2001. - Please read only pages 220-227!
- Take notes on the following questions while you read: 1) What were the traditional genres that women were painted in before the Secession? 2) What women were traditionally portrayed in these genres? 3) How were women portrayed in these genres? 4) What typical archetypes of women were used in paintings during the fin-de-siècle in Vienna? 5) What was Klimt’s attitude toward the erotic and toward sex? 6) What was Klimt’s attitude toward the gender question? 7) When Klimt painted an allegory (so not a portrait), how did he portray women then? 8) Where do we find rather misogynistic portrayals of women during that time?
- Van Heerde, Jeroen. “The Habsburg State and Gustav Klimt. Scenes from a fruitful Relationship.” Klimt's Women, edited by Natter, Tobias G, and Gerbert Frodl. 18-24. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
- Take notes on the following questions while you read: 1) How did artists make money with their work before the Secession started in 1897? 2) What were the goals of the Secession? 3) What was the Secession’s motto? 4) How did they earn money with their art? 5) How was their art received by the Habsburgs and by the general public - why? 6) How did the Secessionists perceive the Habsburgs - why?
- primary texts:
- some of Klimt paintings
- Sármány-Parsons, Ilona. “The Image of Women in Painting: Clichés and Reality in Austria-Hungary, 1895–1905.” Rethinking Vienna 1900, edited by Beller Steven, 220-63. New York: Berghahn Books, 2001. - Please read only pages 220-227!
- theory:
- submit before class
Week 8
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will finish our exploration into Klimt’s paintings and his portrayal of women at the time. We will continue to hone the skill of observation and add our interpretational skills to the mix.
- reading material
- theory:
- Read some facts about Klimt’s women/figures we discussed during last session.
- primary texts:
- Klimt paintings from last Thursday.
- theory:
- submit before class
- week 8 Tuesday review B, draft 2 on Moodle (same submission link as draft 1)
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will finish our journey into the fine arts with Oskar Kokoschka, a painter who was Klimt’s student and is now known for his expressionist work. With him, we will briefly go to Weimar Germany and explore the unraveling of gender expectations.
- reading material
- theory:
- Big Think. “Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender.” Youtube. 6 June 2011. (3 mins)
- Answer the following questions after watching: What does it mean when gender is performed and when gender is performative? What impact do Butler’s thoughts have on the notions of gender and on society?
- Roos, Bonnie. “Oskar Kokoschka’s Sex Toy: The Women and the Doll Who Conceived the Artist.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. 12, no. 2, 2005: 291-309.
- Answer the following questions after reading: What are the facts of the “doll story”? How do Kokoschka and Moos appear feminine and masculine in the process of the doll making? How does Kokoschka appear feminine and masculine in the doll paintings?
- Big Think. “Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender.” Youtube. 6 June 2011. (3 mins)
- primary texts (mentioned in the Roos text):
- Oskar Kokoschka: Alma Mahler Doll (1919), Woman in Blue (1919), Painter with Doll (1920-21), At the Easel (1922)
- theory:
- submit before class
- week 8 Thursday project A, draft 3 on Moodle (same submission link as draft 2)
Week 9
Tuesday
Thursday
- Goal: Today, we will venture into the representation of women of the lower-classes in Vienna at the time, particularly sex workers, and also read sources of contemporary sex work. These texts can be tough reads, so make sure to take care of yourself as you see fit. We will read about a novel written by one of the most known feminists of Vienna around 1900, Else Jerusalem-Kotányi, and compare her reception of sex work with that in scholarly literature about the time and in contemporary material. Please also revisit week 5’s topic (Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen) and Schnitzler’s view on sex workers. We will conclude this lesson with paintings by Viennese artist Egon Schiele that depict women of the lower class around 1900.
- reading material
- For the texts, you will be divided into two reading groups again. You will find the text you are assigned to read for today through the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your (first) last name. If you are unsure what group you are in, let me know! Parts of the following articles share some tough experiences, so take your time, take a break, know your limits.
- group 1 “Vienna 1900” (IM, OH, SH, EG) reads:
- Elkind, Daniel. “House Warning. Revisiting Else Jerusalem’s critique of bourgeois hypocrisy and exploitation.” Lapham’s Quarterly, 2 June 2021. (11 pages)
- Daniel Elkin discusses Else Jerusalem-Kotányi’s 700-page novel The Red House from 1909. Since we cannot read the whole novel, Elkin’s account will present us with some insights into Jersualem-Kotányi’s views on prostitution. Note: Elkin mentions a brothel keeper called Regine Riehl and claims she is “gentile” (not Jewish). Nancy Wingfield however claims that Riehl was, indeed, Jewish. While reading, answer these questions: 1) What do we learn about the author Else Jerusalem-Kotányi? 2) What do we learn about her work? 3) What do we learn about sex workers and theirs lives at Vienna of the time and Jerusalem-Kotányi’s opinion about sex work?
- Wingfield, Nancy M. “Introduction.” The World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria, by Nancy M. Wingfield, 1-16, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- This scholarly work will give us some context for sex work in Vienna of Jerusalem-Kotányi. Focus on the view on sex workers and how the different (official) forces have tried to regulate them.
- Elkind, Daniel. “House Warning. Revisiting Else Jerusalem’s critique of bourgeois hypocrisy and exploitation.” Lapham’s Quarterly, 2 June 2021. (11 pages)
- group 2 “Earth 2022” (CV, SG, EM, TT) reads:
- Little, Alice. “A Legal Sex Worker on What It’s Really Like to Work in a Brothel.” sheknows, 10 July, 2020. (2 pages)
- Alice Little is one of the highest paid sex workers in the country. While reading, answer the following questions: 1) How does Alice Little view her work as a sex worker? 2) What does her socio-economic environment look like?
- Krajeski, Jenna. “Right to Work: Advocates, Lawmakers Reshape Debate Over Decriminalizing Sex Work.” The Fuller Project, 19 April 2021. (14 pages)
- This article talks about the experiences of two sex workers in the United States. While reading, answer the following questions: 1) How do Tamike Spellman and Marian Hatcher view their work as sex workers? 2) What do their socio-economic environments look like?
- Aydemir, Fatma. “Jede Ehe ist eine Scheinehe.” taz, 28 Jan. 2019. (translation here [scroll down to “Op-Ed Column Minority Report: Every marriage is a sham”]) (2 pages)
- This source does not talk about sex work but “marriages of convenience.” What parallels can you draw to sex work in the above articles you read?
- Little, Alice. “A Legal Sex Worker on What It’s Really Like to Work in a Brothel.” sheknows, 10 July, 2020. (2 pages)
- group 1 “Vienna 1900” (IM, OH, SH, EG) reads:
- For the texts, you will be divided into two reading groups again. You will find the text you are assigned to read for today through the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your (first) last name. If you are unsure what group you are in, let me know! Parts of the following articles share some tough experiences, so take your time, take a break, know your limits.
- submit before class
Thursday
- Goal: Today and on Tuesday, we will hear from each other about our final projects. Each student has 10 minutes to present and 5 minutes to receive feedback. Our goal is to 1) learn about each other’s work, 2) give each other feedback on what we enjoy about the project, 3) ask questions about what remains unclear about the project, 4) help each other with improving the project for final submission.
- bring to class
- your presentation (that could be a powerpoint, print outs, just yourself and your brain…)
- submit after class
- Remember: The last reading quiz will be a reaction to the Poetry Without Borders Event, May 26 (today), 5:30-6:30pm in the Weitz Atrium. For this reading quiz, write around 250 words about your experiences at the event: What are your reactions to the format of the event. What poems did you enjoy the most, why? What topics did the poems address? What other things would you like to share? When you are done writing your reflection, submit it here.
Week 10
Tuesday
- Goal: Today, we will finish our final projects presentations (see last Thursday). We will also discuss the implications of all we learned about fin-de-siècle Vienna and the topic of gender and sex(uality). What is left when we leave Vienna of 1900 and return to Earth 2022?
- reading material
- Before you read Anderson’s conclusion to her Utopian Feminism, revisit her introduction from Tuesday week 3 and remind yourself of what you know about Auguste Fickert and Marianne Hainisch. Then, answer the following questions while reading: 1) What achievements by feminists does the text mention? 2) Why may feminists not achieved more and vanished after 1918 as a visible group? 3) Despite that vanishing, what effects did feminism have on society after 1918? 4) What is different in contemporary feminism from feminism in Vienna at the time?
- Anderson, Harriet. “Conclusion. The Legacy of Visionary Feminism,” Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Harriet Anderson, 249-54, Yale University Press, 1992.
- Before you read Anderson’s conclusion to her Utopian Feminism, revisit her introduction from Tuesday week 3 and remind yourself of what you know about Auguste Fickert and Marianne Hainisch. Then, answer the following questions while reading: 1) What achievements by feminists does the text mention? 2) Why may feminists not achieved more and vanished after 1918 as a visible group? 3) Despite that vanishing, what effects did feminism have on society after 1918? 4) What is different in contemporary feminism from feminism in Vienna at the time?
- submit before class
- reading quiz from Poetry Without Borders
- end-of-term evaluations - These will help me improve the class for future students.
- final project is due June 5, 5pm on Moodle (same link as draft 1)