Institut für deutsche Literatur

Projects

Current Projects

 

2020-2022

Jewish Homosexual Modernism in the German Speaking World and in Mandatory Palestine/Israel

The project is a cooperation between Humboldt-University and Hebrew University in Jerusalem funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

The project puts forward the thesis that between 1890 and 1945 a corpus of literary texts – a “Jewish Homosexual Modernism” – came into being in the German cultural sphere. This canon of literature comprises German and Hebrew and Yiddish texts that deal with both Jewishness and homosexuality and their entanglements. [More]

 

 

Logo der Einstein Foundation

 

2017-2022

Naomi Wilzig Art Collection – A Collection on the Cultural History of Sexuality

The World Erotic Art Museum (WEAM) was founded in 2005 by Naomi Wilzig (1934–2015), a Jewish patron and widow of a German Holocaust survivor. Located in Miami Beach, Florida it houses an extensive collection of erotic art covering many eras and cultures.

Since 2018 parts of the collection have been coming to Humboldt University on loan for a period of five years to be indexed, digitized, and researched under the direction of the Research Center. Parts of the collection will be displayed in different museums in Berlin and elsewhere. [More]

 

 

Naomi Wilzig Sammlung

 

Past Projects

 

2016–2019

Cruising the 1970s: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures

The European research project was funded as part of the HERA Programme “Uses of the Past” and carried out together with the UK, Spain and Poland. [More]

 

Logo HERA

 

2016–2019

Jewish Presence in Weimar Gay and Lesbian Culture and the German-Jewish Contribution to the Emergence of Gay Culture in Palestine/Israel, 1933–1960

The research project, carried out together with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was funded by the participant universities in the first phase (2016) and by the German Israel Foundation (GIF) in the second phase (2017–2019). [More]

 

 

Logo GIF

 

2015-2018

Digitization of the Magazine "Der Eigene"

Together with the Humboldt University Library and Schwules Museum, Berlin the Research Center was working on digitalising the Berlin arts and culture magazine Der Eigene: Ein Blatt für männliche Kultur (Our Own: A Magazine of Masculine Culture) in order to make it publicly available to researchers online. [More]

 

 

Der Eigene: Ein Blatt für männliche Kultur, Cover

 

2014-2015

AIDS Archive Pilot Project

Through this pilot project, carried out in collaboration with the Humboldt University Library, the Research Center aimed to establish a basis for a collection on the cultural history of HIV/AIDS. To this end, the Center expanded the Haeberle-Hirschfeld Archive’s collections in the Humboldt Uiversity library on the politics of AIDS through documents received through a range of donations and bequests. [More]

Modell-Projekt Aids-Archiv, Axel Schock und Corinna Gekeler

 

 

2015

Monograph on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexology (1919–1933)

Our Research Center supported Rainer Herrn in preparing a monograph devoted to Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexology (1919–1933), in collaboration with the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation and the Berlin Society for the History of Medicine. [More]

Das Berliner Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, 1919–1933

 

2015

"From the Museum of Passions” – An Exhibition Project with Early-Career Researchers

As part of a project sponsored by the Excellency Initiative of the Humboldt-University, the Research Center curated the exhibition “From the Museum of the Passions. Collections on the Cultural History of Sexuality", which opened on 14 May 2015. [More]

 

 

Ausstellungseroeffnung „Aus dem Museum der Leidenschaften“ im Pergamon Atrium

 

2012-2013

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Testament

Written in diary form, Magnus Hirschfeld’s last will and testament is an important source of information on the later years of his work and his efforts to secure his legacy. [More]

Buchcover: Magnus Hirschfeld: Testament. Heft II.

 

2012-2014

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Legacy: Investigating the Deeds of his Foundation

When Magnus Hirschfeld established a foundation in 1919 as the basis for his establishment of the Institute of Sexology, he instructed: “In the event that the foundation […] should be dissolved, its assets shall pass to the University of Berlin or, if the latter declines to accept the assets, to another university.” [More]

Aktendeckel der Stiftungsakte