Women writing war: From German colonialism through World War I

Recent scholarship has broadened definitions of war and shifted from the narrow focus on battles and power struggles to include narratives of the homefront and private sphere. To expand scholarship on textual representations of war means to shed light on the multiple theaters of war, and on the many voices who contributed to, were affected by, and/or critiqued German war efforts. Engaged women writers and artists commented on their nations' imperial and colonial ambitions and the events of the tumultuous beginning of the twentieth century. In an interdisciplinary investigation, this volume explores select female-authored, German-language texts focusing on German colonial wars and World War I and the discourses that promoted or critiqued their premises. They examine how colonial conflicts contributed to a persistent atmosphere of Kriegsbegeisterung (war enthusiasm) that eventually culminated in the outbreak of World War I, or a Kriegskritik (criticism of war) that resisted it. The span from German colonialism to World War I brings these explosive periods into relief and challenges readers to think about the intersection of nationalism, violence and gender and about the historical continuities and disruptions that shape such events.

Frontmatter --; Table of contents --; Introduction. women writing war: from german colonialism through world war i /; Representations of colonial conflicts --; "who owns hereroland?". diverse women's perspectives on violence in the german-herero colonial war /; Christian love and other weapons. the domestic heroine of the multiracial colonial mission "family" as an antiwar icon in hedwig irle's mission memoirs /; Girls, imperialism and war in women's writing from the german-herero war and wwi /; Views from the colonies on wwi --; Woman on the edge of time. frieda schmidt and the great war in east africa /; World war i in samoa as reported by frieda zieschank in the german colonial magazine kolonie und heimat /; Political perspectives on nationalism and wwi --; Bertha von suttner's die waffen nieder! and the gender of german pacifism /; Ricarda huch's first world war /; Hermynia zur mühlen. writing a socialist-feminist pacifism in the aftermath of wwi /; Constructing the labor of war: girls, mothers and nurses --; Girls reading the great war. german and anglo-american literature for young women, 1914-1920 /; Käte kestien's als die männer im graben lagen. wwi criticism through the lens of motherhood /; Three nurses' life-writing. scrapbook, portrait, and construction of a self /; Narratives of loss and grief in art and literature --; Writing and reading death. german women's novels of world war i /; War widows' dilemma. emotion, the myths of war and the search for selbständigkeit /; Intimations of mortality from recollections of atrocity. käthe kollwitz and the art of mourning /; Notes on authors --; Names index / von Hammerstein, Katharina / Kosta, Barbara / Shoults, Julie --; von Hammerstein, Katharina --; Brewer, Cindy Patey --; Gallagher, Maureen O. --; Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne --; Rigotti, Livia --; Rose, Shelley E. --; Skidmore, James M. --; Shoults, Julie --; Redmann, Jennifer --; Walter-Gensler, Cindy --; Higonnet, Margaret R. --; Quinn, Erika --; Kuhlman, Erika --; Kolb, Martina --