Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jens Thiele (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz 2007 / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sabine Wilharm (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Berlin: Kindermann Verlag 2013

Eder, Ulrike

doi:10.14220/odaf.2014.30.1.125

ÖDaF-Mitteilungen

2014

DOI: 10.14220/odaf.2014.30.1.125

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jens Thiele (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz 2007 / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sabine Wilharm (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Berlin: Kindermann Verlag 2013

Ulrike Eder¹

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2021

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“…Historians of sexuality have variously engaged with the German-speaking history of homosexuality (see, for instance, Bauer, 2017; Beachy, 2014; Eder, 2002, 2011; Hacker, 2015; Heinrich and Kirchkopf, 2018; Lybeck, 2014; Spector, 2016; Sutton, 2020). While much recent focus has been devoted to Germany’s most famous sexologist and homosexual rights activist, Magnus Hirschfeld, Krafft-Ebing’s and Freud’s contributions to the history of homosexuality in the German-speaking world are more implicit and ambiguous.…”

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Normal enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and homosexuality

Lang

2021

History of the Human Sciences

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This article analyses the slippery notions of the normal and normality in select works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and argues that homosexuality became a ‘boundary object’ between the normal and the abnormal in their works. Constructing homosexuality as ‘normal enough’ provided these two key thinkers of the fin de siècle with an opportunity to challenge societal and medical norms: Krafft-Ebing did this through mapping perversions; Freud, by challenging perceived norms about sexual development more broadly. The article submits that the scientific logic presented in Krafft-Ebing’s seminal case study compilation Psychopathia Sexualis and Freud’s early theoretical writings and cases, including Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), was itself haunted by notions of norms and the normal that were not always easy to resolve, and sometimes involved a certain amount of inspired conjecture on the part of both thinkers in order to develop and validate their differing tripartite models of normality. Krafft-Ebing imagined homosexuality as a variation of the normal by generalizing a gay male experience. He also recorded the obstreperous cases of homosexual women based largely inside the clinic but by and large ignored this evidence. Freud inextricably bound homosexuality to normality (and vice versa) by redefining homosexuals as a group to include individuals with unconscious same-sex desire. Doing so allowed him to conceptualize the fear of homosexuality as crucial in the formation of neurosis and psychosis, and at the same time put him at odds with relevant early identity politics.

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confidence: 99%

Normal enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and homosexuality

Lang

2021

History of the Human Sciences

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jens Thiele (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz 2007 / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sabine Wilharm (Ill.): Der Erlkönig. Berlin: Kindermann Verlag 2013

Cited by 1 publication

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Normal enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and homosexuality

Normal enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and homosexuality

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