Expressionism and gender

A comprehensive overview of gender-historical trends in Expressionism is still a desideratum; the number and heterogeneity of such trends call for a diverse range of specialized studies. This volume makes an important contribution to cultural-historical research on the links between Expressionism and gender; it deals with literature (especially prose), film, plays by Ernst Toller, and paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The contributions explore topics such as fantasies of male birth, sexuality in contexts of money and traffic flows, aspects of maternal practice, crises of masculinities, gender symbolism, prostitute figures, and women as means for the increase of male social power. The findings suggest that future research should focus more strongly on three ways in which expressionists problematize gender positions: on symbolically meaningful transgressions of gender roles, on contradictory specifications of gender-coded identities, and on de-essentialized modes of sexual expression in the force fields of technology and social power.