Gefühlsgeschichtliche Auswege aus identitätspolitischen Konflikten?

Queer-historische Überlegungen

Abstract

This article discusses conflicts surrounding queer memory. It argues that an empirical focus on feelings allows historians to address concerns arising from identity politics, while avoiding the dangers of anachronistic appropriation of the past and the pitfall of ‘victim hierarchies’. The article first addresses the concept of identity politics and the dispute between ‘objective’ academic culture and activist ‘subjectivity’. It then discusses queer- and memory-theoretical perspectives on affects and emotions, before examining the past feelings of those who are to be remembered, and the present feelings of those who wish to remember them. To this end, it focuses on the Nazi persecution of same-sex loving and gender-nonconforming people, paying particular attention to debates around memorials in Ravensbrück, Berlin and Vienna since the 1980s. The article concludes that intertwining outrage and reflection, identification and doubt, a sense of belonging and grief, enables a form of emotional criticism that can resolve conflicts surrounding identity politics.