Welcome to the "Queer Reading – A Methodology" research project's website, which is part of the Humboldt University's centre for Cultural History of Sexuality. This page offers information on the literary method of Queer Reading while also documenting the activities of the project. This research is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
This project primarily works on establishing Queer Reading as a methodology applicable to Literatures written in German. Its main focus lies on the age of paragraph 175, meaning between the years 1872 to 1994, during which homosexuality was criminalised. Queer Reading is a literary practice aimed at texts written within heteronormative circumstances. Starting from the structures observable on the surfaces of these texts, this practice identifies and analyses non-normative forms of desire. In doing so, an intersectional perspective aims to take into account diverse forms of discrimination in their complex entanglements.
Our research takes into account canonical as well as widely unknown German literary works.
Two book publications are in the works: an introduction into the methodology of Queer Reading, and an anthology on German literature under § 175.
