Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis
<p>This thesis explores the lives of a small selection of individual German women who pursued professions as writers, journalists, or photojournalists, and whose work saw them spend significant periods of time abroad between 1920 and 1950. These women were unalike in important ways: they held...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2023
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| _version_ | 1797113134894284800 |
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| author | Friege, K |
| author2 | Stargardt, N |
| author_facet | Stargardt, N Friege, K |
| author_sort | Friege, K |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis explores the lives of a small selection of individual German women who pursued professions as writers, journalists, or photojournalists, and whose work saw them spend significant periods of time abroad between 1920 and 1950. These women were unalike in important ways: they held diverging political beliefs, pursued different personal and professional goals, and travelled abroad in contradictory directions. At the same time, they shared a strong sense of independence and individuality, unanimously considered themselves to be modern women, and were each committed to their own imagined version of the German nation.</p>
<p>I argue that centring the individual and subjective experiences of these heterogeneous women highlights the extent to which they remoulded abstract cultural frameworks, especially gender and national identity, first and foremost to suit their own purposes. Those purposes varied widely, but in their shared insistence on individuality, independence, and social relevance, they revealed themselves to be part of a fluid and emerging cohort of emancipated women who were aware of being unconventional, but who nonetheless had a wide range of complex possible life paths to choose from. Their loyalty to imagined versions of German modernity was paramount to their otherwise malleable sense of nationhood because it created openings they might not have found otherwise and bestowed external meaning on their choices. They thus often looked towards the future more than they did the past. At the same time, that the lives these women chose to live were available to them was due to their privileged social background and liberal education more than to contemporary events.</p>
<p>The research project is important, because it probes the complex relationship between individuals and their wider cultural context without flattening out either personality or agency. Especially in the case of Nazi Germany, the question of how cultural context and individual subjectivities intersect is one that continues to excite scholarly interest.</p>
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| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T03:58:59Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:68cdf8b3-7787-4217-8ac4-38d669adb1d2 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T03:58:59Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:68cdf8b3-7787-4217-8ac4-38d669adb1d22024-04-08T09:53:49ZImagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, NazisThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:68cdf8b3-7787-4217-8ac4-38d669adb1d2HistoryEnglishHyrax Deposit2023Friege, KStargardt, N<p>This thesis explores the lives of a small selection of individual German women who pursued professions as writers, journalists, or photojournalists, and whose work saw them spend significant periods of time abroad between 1920 and 1950. These women were unalike in important ways: they held diverging political beliefs, pursued different personal and professional goals, and travelled abroad in contradictory directions. At the same time, they shared a strong sense of independence and individuality, unanimously considered themselves to be modern women, and were each committed to their own imagined version of the German nation.</p> <p>I argue that centring the individual and subjective experiences of these heterogeneous women highlights the extent to which they remoulded abstract cultural frameworks, especially gender and national identity, first and foremost to suit their own purposes. Those purposes varied widely, but in their shared insistence on individuality, independence, and social relevance, they revealed themselves to be part of a fluid and emerging cohort of emancipated women who were aware of being unconventional, but who nonetheless had a wide range of complex possible life paths to choose from. Their loyalty to imagined versions of German modernity was paramount to their otherwise malleable sense of nationhood because it created openings they might not have found otherwise and bestowed external meaning on their choices. They thus often looked towards the future more than they did the past. At the same time, that the lives these women chose to live were available to them was due to their privileged social background and liberal education more than to contemporary events.</p> <p>The research project is important, because it probes the complex relationship between individuals and their wider cultural context without flattening out either personality or agency. Especially in the case of Nazi Germany, the question of how cultural context and individual subjectivities intersect is one that continues to excite scholarly interest.</p> |
| spellingShingle | History Friege, K Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title | Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title_full | Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title_fullStr | Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title_short | Imagining Germany abroad, c. 1920-1950. Women writers, photographers, exiles, Nazis |
| title_sort | imagining germany abroad c 1920 1950 women writers photographers exiles nazis |
| topic | History |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT friegek imagininggermanyabroadc19201950womenwritersphotographersexilesnazis |