A Violent World of Difference: Magnus Hirschfeld and the Shaping of Queer Modernity

This research will examine how violence, death, hatred and persecution affected the development modern queer identity and culture. It focuses on the work and reception of the prolific Jewish sexologist and activist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), who is best known today for his homosexual rights activism, foundational studies of transvestism and opening of the world's first Institute of Sexual Sciences in Berlin. But Hirschfeld was also a chronicler of the effects of hate and violence against lesbians and homosexual men and other groups of people. Publishing both in German and English and influenced by his literary as well as medical training, he wrote, for example, about the death of Oscar Wilde and how it affected homosexual men at the turn of the last century; he conducted the first statistical surveys of lesbian and homosexual suicide; and he published books on war, nationalism and racism in which he collated evidence of different forms of collective discrimination and their impact on individual lives. A well-known figure amongst contemporary writers and artists, he was instrumental in the production of a series of films about aspects of sexual discrimination, famously starring in Anders als die Anderen [Different from the Others], a silent movie about homosexual blackmail released in German cinemas in 1919. Hirschfeld's homosexuality as much as his Jewishness, and his cultural activities as much as his political activism, were at the centre of several verbal and physical attacks on his life. Having travelled extensively between the 1890s and 1920s, he eventually left Germany for good in 1930 because of the increased threat of Nazi persecution. When he returned to Europe from a world lecturing tour two years later, Hirschfeld witnessed in a cinema in Paris news of the destruction of his Institute, which culminated in his bust being paraded through the streets of Berlin before it was set alight in the first of the Nazi book burnings.

A Violent World of Difference excavates this complex archive for the insights it provides into the role of violence in the shaping of modern queer identity and culture. Engaging with the recent 'negative turn' in queer history - the focus on difficult experiences in the queer past and their legacies - and current scholarship on cultural politics, feelings and modernity, the research examines the narratives about lesbian and homosexual death, suicide, injury and persecution in Hirschfeld's work to show how such suffering was understood at the time. It brings together analyses of sexological literature, literary and popular culture, film and photography to demonstrate that traumatic experiences had a significant impact not only on the individuals subjected to them but also on the shaping of a wider modern queer culture. By paying attention to Hirschfeld's travels and the translations of his work, the project further traces the transnational contours of queer suffering, revealing that violent attacks on lesbians and homosexual men created emotional shockwaves that rippled far across the geopolitical boundaries of the modern world. In so doing, then, this research also tells a broader story about how 'identity' was experienced, transmitted, damaged and sustained in the transnational shaping of modernity.

A core objective of this research is to engage with potential users and disseminate its findings beyond academia. The Fellowship begins and closes with two events aimed specifically at engaging 1. non-academic and 2. professional audiences (see also Pathways to Impact; Workplan):

1. In February 2014 I will present a public talk on Hirschfeld hosted by the Raphael Samuel History Centre, a research and educational centre devoted to encouraging the widest possible participation in historical research and debate. Aimed at the local lesbian and gay community and the wider public, the talk is timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the LGBT History Month campaign, a UK-wide initiative that fosters public understanding of the diversity of queer life in the past and present. My talk will discuss Hirschfeld's contribution to the emergence of an international lesbian and gay rights movement and his role in pioneering transgender and intersex rights. It will use Hirschfeld's work to reflect on debates about equality and sexual rights, which are once more at the forefront of public and political discussions in the UK (where they focus on the recent introduction of gay marriage) and worldwide (where the criminalization and active persecution of homosexuality in over seventy countries remains a vital political concern). The Raphael Samuel History Centre has close links with London's queer communities and regularly attracts audiences of around 200 people to its public talks. According to feedback conducted on a recent queer themed event, 70% of its audience are non-academics. My talk will further be advertised via the BiGS mailing list, which has links with non-HEI networks such as Gay's the Word bookshop, the Birkbeck Alumni network, and the LGBT History month website. I will pitch a journalistic article based on this talk to the THE and propose shorter write-ups to the gay online magazine Polari, and the UK's popular lesbian magazine Diva, for which I have acted as a consultant in the past.

2. In December 2014, the last month of the Fellowship, I will organize a workshop on Queer Suicide for health professionals and educators. Suicide was a major concern for Hirschfeld. From the evidence I found, he was the first modern doctor to pay detailed attention to lesbian and gay suicide, gathering statistical information and collecting an archive of suicide notes, many of which were directly addressed at him. The workshop will discuss this difficult archive with professionals whose job it is to provide advice and care for lesbian and gay people suffering from depression, anxieties and suicidal thoughts, or who teach the medical professionals dealing with these issues. It will draw on the Department's existing links via its MA in Medical Humanities (for which I have given guest lectures) with the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery, and the links I developed with health professionals through my contribution to Critical Sexology (a seminar for humanities scholars and health and legal professionals). The workshop aims to initiate dialogue between humanities scholars and medical professionals to consider the usefulness of knowledge about the history of lesbian and gay suicide for health workers today (see Pathways to Impact for details of proposed contributors). I will submit a write-up of the event to the medical journal The Lancet, which in its 'Perspectives' section publishes brief non-medical papers on issues related to medical practice and research.

The Fellowship would allow me to organize these activities while completing the research and writing for the monograph. The book will publicize an important archive of social, cultural and political attitudes towards queer women and men and document the emotional impact of the hate and persecution they experienced, 1900-1950. It will provide a valuable resource for academics and non-academic wishing to engage with the cultural history of violence against queer women and men.