December 1979 Newsletter

WOMEN IN GERMAN

Number 21                                                December 5, 1979

Membership/Subscription fee: $7.00 ($3.00 if unemployed or student)

This issue will be a rather short one since you really did not have much time to respond to the November Newsletter containing all the exciting information on the WIG Workshop in Racine, Wisconsin.* However, we are pleased to let you know that we received many new subscriptions and even more renewals. We take this as an encouragement on your part for us to continue our work.

We would like to confirm the announcement made in our last issue (#20) that the 1980 WIG Workshop will definitely again be held at the Siena Center in Racine, Wisconsin, on October 3-5, 1980. Margot Schroeder will be joining us at our conference. In preparation for this event we are printing a bibliography of Schroeder’s work as well as a book review of her Ich stehe meine Frau. (We thank NGC for their friendly cooperation.)

This Newsletter will hopefully reach you before classes resume so that you can take with you our best wishes for a relaxing .vacation as well as
"Einen
guten
Rutsch
ins
Neue
Jahr
1980!!!!"

CALL FOR PAPERS

MMLA Women’s Caucus Workshop: Jewish Women Writers from an International Perspective

This workshop is intended not only to introduce the work of Jewish women writers (from the 17th century to the present in Europe and the United States), but also to raise questions concerning the cultural contexts in which Jewish women write. The session will focus on presentations that synthesize the work of a single writer or that deal with questions concerning Jewish women’s writing in a particular time period or place. Some questions to be considered: How does the Jewish tradi­tion affect the Jewish woman as writer? What literary forms does she choose in which to speak? To whom does she seem to be speaking? How has she been heard?
What does she struggle to say? Send abstracts by March 1; completed papers by April 15 to: Professor Evelyn Torton Beck
Women’s Studies Program
[redacted]

Because it is MMLA policy to duplicate and distribute papers in advance of the meeting, length is strictly limited to 8 single-spaced pages (including footnotes). No papers will be read at the session. If you are not a member of MMLA your name will not appear on the program, so please join. Dates for the 1980 meeting: November 6-8 in Minneapolis.

WIG at the 1980 MLA. Call for papers on Women Writers Prior to 1800. Please submit abstract for papers (2-3 pages) by April 1, 1980. Send proposal to:

Gabriele Strauch
[redacted]

and

Julie Prandi
[redacted]

Because, in the early years of our publication, there used to be so few women- related papers and sessions, it was easy for us to list all of these in our pre- MLA issue of WiG. This year, to our surprise and delight, the number has increased to such an extent, that a complete listing of all these sessions would take up more pages than we can afford to print at this time. We are, therefore, listing only those sessions that we have reason to believe are directly related to the teaching and study of German literature and language. If we omitted anyone, we are sorry in advance. The MLA program is at best a little overwhelming!

WiG Sessions:

Pre-Literary Forms and German Women's Writing I
1:00-2:15 p.m., Governors I, Hyatt, December 28
Presiding: Sara Lennox and Miriam Franck
papers:
Dorothy Rosenberg, "Christa Brück's Schicksale hinter Schreibmaschinen"
Viktoria Harwig, "Lili Körber's Eine Frau erlebt den roten Alltag"
Nancy Vedder-Shults, "Breaking the Silence: Women's Documentary Literature in the Federal Republic"

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Pre-Literary Forms and German Women's Writing II
2:45 - 4:00 p.m., Governors I, Hyatt, December 28
Presiding: Jeanette Clausen
Papers:
Renate Delphendahl, "Women’s Language"
Kay Goodman, "Reading Women’s Autobiography"
Susan S. Lanser, "Feminism and Form"

Business Meeting of the Coalition of Women in German
4:30-5:45 p.m., Governors I, Hyatt, December 28
Presiding: Miriam Frank and Sara Lennox

1. "Feminist Criticism in Germany," in International Feminist Criticism, 7:00-8:15 p.m., Plaza Square, Hyatt, Thursday, December 27 (Evelyn Beck)

2. "Teaching [German?] in Alternative Settings" (the German is not 100% certain) 8:30-9:45 a.m., California, Hilton, Friday, December 28 (Miriam Frank)

3. "Women’s Studies in the Foreign Languages." Though no single paper addresses itself to German per se, the discussion of the theoretical and practical issues might prove useful. Olympic North, St. Francis, 10:15-11:30 a.m., Friday, December 28.

4. "What Makes a Paper Publishable?" (Of special interest to us is the presenta­tion by Ruth Angress, long time WiG member, editor of the German Quarterly, and member of the MLA Commission on the Status of Women.) 1:00-2:15 p.m., California,
West St. Francis, Friday, December 28.

5. "Feminine Aesthetics and Women's Writings," in German Literature of the 70s. 9:00-10:15 a.m., Plaza Square West, Hyatt, Sunday, December 30 (Sara Lennox)

This seems a good moment to call your attention to Concerns, the Newsletter of the Women’s Caucus of the Modern Languages, which, in its December issue was able to offer a complete listing of MLA woman-related sessions. We urge you to join this caucus, which has done much to bring about the integration of women’s material into the MLA. Look for WCML open house at MLA. For membership forms and further information write to: Thelma Shinn, Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281.

One closing thought: How many of these dozens of women-related sessions at MLA (or anywhere else for that matter) will provide a feminist analysis of the material? If you have thoughts or observations on this subject, please send them to us for our next issue. (Submission date March 15, 1980)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Resources for Feminist Research is a quarterly periodical of review essays, abstracts of current publications and work in progress in Women’s Studies. (Canadian and International) Address: Dept. of Sociology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Canada M5S 1V6.

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We recently received the following announcement from Jennifer Newton, one of the editors of this Canadian journal and thought we would pass it along to our readers.

Dear Friend,

This is to ask you to participate in the lighter side of feminist studies. As you will no doubt have noticed, Resources for Feminist Research tries at all times to be even-handed and mild-tempered in its presentation. For once, however, we would like to give our readers and ourselves the chance to vent that often felt, but perhaps too seldom expressed exasperation, outrage, and plain old disbelief that we so often experience in our work and study related to women in society.

Therefore, we announce our FIRST OCCASIONAL IRASCIBILITY SPECIAL SECTION, to be edited by low-key editorial board member, Marylee Stephenson. You are invited to take those entirely deserved pot-shots at your least favourite book, article, theoretical approach, government (at any level) policy, school, university or college tradition. Topics that come to mind include: "support" for feminist studies by colleagues—real or imagined?; sexism in the social life of your work­place; the books you love to hate; how I lost my women’s studies references in the local library; how to be left out of the collective description of the staff where you work or play; "man and society" courses—where did we go? were We ever there?

You name it—just write us about it. We’d like a typed page or two, or even more. Serious or humourous in intent and/or style. Graphics and other artwork considered. We welcome as many as are fit to print.

The deadline is January 10, 1980, and we hope to get it all in the March issue. Address your contributions to Marylee at the RFR office.

Don’t let this opportunity slip past, for want of sufficient spleen or energy!

WIG WORKSHOP

1. WiG Workshop 1979 Continued...

Dürrenmatt and Intermediate German:
Mixing Feminism With Language Skills

In order to deal with the seemingly contradictory goals that Intermediate German not only promote conversation skills but also provide intellectual substance appropriate to a college level humanities elective, I designed a 3rd semester course that concentrated on one author, Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Four of his works are published in this country in annotated editions, and recordings of Hörspiele and a filmed version of "Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi" can be obtained with some effort.

I chose DUrrenmatt because his style is clear and direct, and the issues he raises, such as materialism, the limits of scientific inquiry, and the relationship of women and power, appeal to today’s students. By narrowing the scope of the course to a single author, I was in a better position to encourage students to discuss thematic, structural, and stylistic elements in each work and to examine

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critically the social issues Dürrenmatt raises, in particular his negative portrayal of women. Because the students worked within the mind-set of one writer, they gained a deeper appreciation of literature and contributed to class discussion with a degree of confidence that would be difficult to attain if the course were to jump from author to author and span a century or more.

The first part of this paper discusses pedagogical concerns of the intermediate level and suggests ways to combine grammar exercises with an analysis of Dürrenmatt’s style. The second part presents several methods of discussing the text that assure student participation and, on occasion, even furnish the instructor with unexpected insights. The last part provides a detailed analysis of the women characters in the four annotated texts and invites further discussion of Dürrenmatt’s disturbing portrayal of women with power as the ultimate expression of the grotesque.

Ilse Klemperer Evans
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2. Schroeder Bibliography

Follow up on the fifth annual WiG Workshop to be held at the Siena Center, Racine, Wisconsin (on the shores of Lake Michigan), October 3-5, 1980. (This date is now confirmed.) Mark your calendars and start reading ahead. We are in the process of inviting Margot Schroeder to participate in this weekend, and for this reason, we are including a list of her texts, and her own description of herself:

Margot Schroeder, geboren 1937 in Hamburg. Verheiratet, zwei Kinder.
Erlernter Beruf Buchhändlerin. Seit 14 Jahren Hausfrau, nebenberuflich Schriftstellerin.

Veröffentlichungen:

Ehebefragung, Hörspiel, NDR 1972.

Die Prestigelücke, Hörspiel HR 1975.

Ich stehe meine Frau, Roman, Fischer Taschenbuch Berlag, Frankfurt 1975.

Die Angst ist baden gegangen, Gedichte, Fietkau Verlag, Berlin 1976.

Der Schlachter empfiehlt noch immer Herz, Roman, Frauenbuchverlag, München 1976

It is our plan to have Schroeder participate in several of the sessions and to be available for informal discussions as part of our program. We are very excited by the prospect of closing the gap between Women and German, and we feel that having such close contact with a major contemporary feminist writer is an excellent way of proceeding. If any of you already know some of her work and would like to write anything about it for WiG, send in your essays or reviews by March 15, 1980.

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3. Schroeder Book Review

Schroeder, Margot, Ich stehe meine Frau (A Woman You can Count On).* Ed. with the cooperation of the Hamburger Werksiati Schreibender Arbeiter, Peter Fischbach and Bernhard Wenger. Frankfurt/Main: FischerTaschenbuch, 1975. 190 pp. D.M. 4.80.                              '

Schroeder’s novel has many virtues and many flaws. An account of a thirty- seven-year-old woman’s attempt to organize an independent community project (Biirgerinitiative), here a playground for an apartment complex, Ich stehe meine Frau addresses many of the problems and the successes of “ordinary” women engaged for the first time in political activity. Charlie Bieber is uncertain of her own abilities, jealous of other women, guilty about the time her politics robs from her children, and harried by her never-ending responsibilities as a part-time grocery clerk and housewife. She is torn between a working-class husband who has never recognized her needs and a sensitive student given to leftist phraseology. The novel is narrated as Charlie’s interior monologue which reveals her as tough, energetic and terribly funny. It is punctuated by Hamburg slang and obscenities. The technique allows Schroeder to show from within Charlie’s growing consciousness of her needs as a woman (along with her doubts and setbacks), her resistance to those who thwart them (for instance, she “strikes” on weekends, forcing other family members to take over household tasks), and her increasing solidarity with other women who share similar problems.

The novel’s defects may, one suspects, be related to the fact of its publication in the Werkkreis Literaiur der Arbeitswelt series. Though disguised in part by the lively style, the novel suffers from excessive schematicism and the employment of certain obligatory characters in the worst tradition of socialist realism. Discussions between the women participating in the campaign tend to resemble a dramatized presentation of theoretical principles.

But the faults of Ich stehe meine Frau are are related much more to its leftist than its feminist politics, if such a distinction can legitimately be made. As a feminist, Schroeder has a great deal to offer the German women’s movement, especially as it attempts to ally itself with the organized left: her book shows working-class women engaged in a grassroots organizing effort, the difficulties they encounter and the personal and social changes they bring about. Despite her apparent allegiance to the DKP, Schroeder is also very clear about the amount of sexism oppressing all classes of women, and the need for separate women’s organizations to combat it. Certainly Schroeder’s Charlie is a positive hero engaged in exemplary political activity, yet we feminists do have occasional need of positive role models, and in the final assess­ment Schroeder’s book contains much more that is true than is false to the nature of women’s experience.

Lennox

* The phrase exists in accepted usage only in the masculine: Ich stehe meinen Mann.

We would like to thank New German Critique for letting us use the bookreview.

No renewal notices will be sent.

Read your label and renew immediately when numbers match.

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This newsletter was prepared by Evelyn Torton Beck, Christa Hildebrand, Sara Markham, Biddy Martin, Mary Rhiel, James Steakley, and Gabriele Strauch.