Description
Session Description: “Modern Erotica: Sex, Censorship and German Visual Culture”Article 118 of Germany’s first democratic constitution in 1919 stated: "Every German has the right, within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinion freely in word, in writing, in print, in picture form or in any other way. […] No censorship shall be established.” This seemingly liberal legislation opened the door to a wide array of erotica: from luxury print folios, paintings and illustrated bibliophile books, to cheap postcards and mass-circulated images in pulp novels and magazines. The contemporary press published caricatures of touts peddling erotica and stalls piled high with erotic magazines and photographs. However, the reality of this constitutional ‘freedom’ was more complex and ambivalent. The article continued: “…legal measures are permissible for the suppression of indecent and obscene literature, as well as for the protection of youth at public plays and exhibitions."
This panel seeks to explore how and why erotic visual culture became the source of both fascination and alarm during this period. How did politics and eroticism intersect? How did law making in Weimar – with its new constitutional declarations, and the retention of imperial criminal codes on censorship and sexuality – shape the production and consumption of erotic visual material? What methods were used to peddle and collect erotica and circumvent these censorship laws? What audiences and communities were addressed by erotic texts and images? To what extent did erotica contribute to a ‘backlash’ and help galvanise support for the right? Or in what ways does the study of erotica challenge typical teleological narratives of Weimar? These are some of the questions we will be asking in this session. Papers explore the obscenity trials of prominent artists, the ways in which censorship informed the use of erotic visual material in queer journals and sexological publications and how the politics of erotica played out in the work of artists whose careers straddled both the Weimar and Nazi periods.
| Period | 18 Sept 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | German Studies Association Annual Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Texas , United StatesShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |