Anna Rüling: Lesbian Fiction and a Short History of German Sexology
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Date
2020-12
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
During the late 19th and early 20th century in Germany, fiction written by and for homosexual women was uncommon. Anna Rüling, a pseudonym used by Theo Anna Sprüngli in her younger years, wrote a collection of short stories that has been largely unnoticed and includes short stories about homosexual women and men. The reception of this collection at the time is unknown, but it is some of the only fiction that exists for homosexual women from the early 1900s. There is only one copy of this text publicly available, and it lives in the archives of the Bavarian State Library. The goal of this paper was to create an educational tool for English speakers who have little to no experience with queer history or studies to give a basic background in the topic and provide a reading activity that sparks conversation about the way people existed over a hundred years ago compared to today. Three stories have been provided to students to interact with and use as tools to not only learn German but to also help provide a space to discuss past and present.
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Keywords
sexology, queer history, queer literature, lesbian fiction