Reading the Female Perpetrator
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12904236 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Antony Rowland (0000-0002-6196-9662, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 2-3 |
| Pages | 145-161 |
| Publication date | 2011-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Holocaust Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1750-4902 • E-ISSN: 2048-4887 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17504902.2011.11087291 |
| OpenAlex | W2401571387 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 7 |
The cultural visibility in Western Europe of female perpetrators outweighs their historical significance, and this essay deploys queer theory in order to account for this imbalance. Focusing on the spectacle of female perpetrators such as Irma Grese and Ilse Koch, the discussion utilises Judith Halberstam’s concept of female masculinity. Critics have often pointed to the way in which the Allied media focused on what was seen to be a pathological atavism in characters such as Koch and Grese, but this essay argues that an inability to read these figures outside of the construction of masculine traits allows for a simplistic reading of their crimes: that these were just errant and ‘odd’ women. The essay then goes on to examine the representation of female perpetrators in the Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader, and subsequent film, and Oliver Storz’s film Gegen Ende der Nacht [Toward the End of the Night]. These films and novel draw on the figures of Koch and Grese, and engage in gender readings of their life and behaviour. The essay then turns to the less well-known and contrasting female perpetrators, such as Johanna Langefeld. Whereas the trials in West Germany brought notoriety to female perpetrators, in East Germany such women were often deemed to have been incapable of such crimes
Aesthetics · Art · Close reading · Linguistics · Literature · Masculinity · Order (exchange · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Queer · Queer theory · Reading (process · Representation (politics · Sociology · Spectacle · European history and politics · Gender Studies · German History and Society · German Literature and Culture Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,22 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2020 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |