Works in Progress by Karin Baumgartner
The study investigates how early German travel guides shaped the discourses of national identity.... more The study investigates how early German travel guides shaped the discourses of national identity. I argue that these guides established national boundaries, re-imagined heterogeneous local identities as unified national ones, and defined the modern subject as both mobile and comfortable within a large national body.
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Books by Karin Baumgartner
From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland places Switzerland wit... more From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland places Switzerland within the context of transnational labor migration and examines how this German-, French-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking nation is being transformed by the influx of migrants from all over the world who now constitute a fifth of the population. This dynamic mixture of cultures and races is embodied by a new generation of citizens who call themselves 'Secondas and Secondos,' the second generation. Today, Switzerland is leading all industrial nations in growth potential and economic benefits from migration (OECD). The articles in this volume analyze the challenges, successes, and ongoing struggles Switzerland experiences with migration, focusing specifically on what it means to shape a nation-state by political will rather than linguistic and cultural unity. From Multiculturalism to Hybridity also offers teaching suggestions for the French, German, and Italian language and literature classroom as well as for courses in Social, Cultural, and Political Studies. Articles address the hybrid literatures and cultures of Switzerland including films, pageants, smellscapes, and women s issues and place Switzerland in the context of a unifying European continent. Readers will find ideas and resources for critically investigating and teaching the concepts of cultural hybridity and transculturalism in the high school and college classroom.
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This book examines the possibilities of political theorizing in the writings of early nineteenth-... more This book examines the possibilities of political theorizing in the writings of early nineteenth-century German women and develops a new theory of reading women's domestic fiction. Drawing on feminism, new historicism, and hermeneutics for its theoretical framework, the study suggests significant changes to Jürgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere and women's role within it. The book re-evaluates the genre of domestic fiction and traces its use by women writers for political symbolism. Through novels, educational treatises, conduct manuals, poetry, and history
books for women and children Caroline Fouqué, the principal voice in this study, and other authors of the period participated in the key debates of the early nineteenth century, among them the anguished discussions about the crisis in masculinity after the defeat of the Prussian army in 1806, the discourses of national identity, the construction of a national past, and the reorganization of the feudal state.
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Papers by Karin Baumgartner
Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 2015
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German Studies Review, 2004
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The German Quarterly, 2000
... Sentimental Discourse? Gender Dissonance and Women's Passionate &amp... more ... Sentimental Discourse? Gender Dissonance and Women's Passionate 'Friendships,'" in Outing Goethe and His Age, ed., Alice Kuzniar (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996), 228-249. Page 21. INTRODUCTION 3 grown sentiments. Arguments ...
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In this article, I argue that modern tourism came into existence through the writings of female t... more In this article, I argue that modern tourism came into existence through the writings of female travel writers who taught their audiences at home that Italy could be visit- ed efficiently, safely, and enjoyably. Their travel guides opened Italy for future trav- elers by providing precise descriptions of Italian landscapes and the intellectual and emotional response to them. Moreover, they broadened women’s knowledge of history, which allowed the readers at home to contextualize what they saw, and, additionally, they introduced the notion of enjoyment and pleasure into traveling. By shifting the focus from “scholarship” and “edification” to “pleasure,” the Italian journey became one suitable for women. By the 1850s, women had become experts in travel and wrote for broad, mixed-gender audiences.
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Around 1800, the travel narrative bifurcated into two distinct traditions: the first-person trave... more Around 1800, the travel narrative bifurcated into two distinct traditions: the first-person travel essay or travel memoir and the travel guidebook. The article compares Goethe’s Italian Journey and Mariana Starke’s Letters from Italy as two texts that have shaped the discourse on how travel differs from tourism, how sights should be seen, and what accounts for an authentic travel experience. The article shows how both writers created the ‘edited’ tour that no longer focused on everything that could be seen. Starke created a truncated, but unified body of knowledge for her readers that became the blueprint for future guidebooks, while Goethe defined a unified mode of perception that still defines the travel memoir today.
Keywords travel, tourism, cultural identity, Goethe’s Italienische Reise, Mariana Starke, travel narratives
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Jahrbuch des Forum Vormärz Forschung
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Sophie Discovers Amerika: German-Speaking Women Write the New World. Ed. Robert McFahrland and Michelle James. Rochester
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Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German 45.2 , 2012
This article describes a five-week module on “Switzerland as a multi-ethnic society” intended to ... more This article describes a five-week module on “Switzerland as a multi-ethnic society” intended to counteract the popular image of Switzerland as a homogenous country concerned mostly with tourism, chocolate, and watches. Instead, the module treats Switzerland through topics such as the definition of identity in a multi-ethnic society, the politics of immigration for a largely service-based economy, and the strains that migration puts on a modern society shaped by political will. The unit seeks to familiarize students with contemporary multi-ethnic Switzerland through a number of different texts (including film and music), compare the Swiss debates of migration and integration to those in the United States, and move students toward deep reflection on the larger issue concerning migration and national identity. The module is versatile in that it can be taught as part of a course on Switzerland, or of a broader course on migration in the German-speaking countries.
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Women's Writing 18.1, 2010
This essay addresses the cultural influence of French authors Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis and Ge... more This essay addresses the cultural influence of French authors Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis and Germaine de Staël on German women writers, in particular Helmina von Chézy. As the Paris-based editor of the journal Französische Miscellen (French Miscellanea), Chézy regularly wrote about the latest French literature by women and promoted not only the literature of Genlis, Staël, Sophie Cottin, and George Sand, but also these authors' understanding of themselves as professional artists, as voices of the public sphere, and as women engaged in the capitalist book market. Although Chézy was a prolific writer and lyricist, she never achieved the fame or influence of the French writers. The essay evaluates the strategies Chézy used to style herself after the French writers, considers reasons for Chézy's failure, and argues that German nationalism and the resurgence of political conservatism after the Napoleonic Wars purged the German literary public sphere of the political voices of women.
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New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland. Ed. Karin Baumgartner and Margrit Zinggeler. , 2010
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New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland. Ed. Karin Baumgartner and Margrit Zinggeler. , 2010
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Regensburger Beiträge zur deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. , 2009
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Forum Vormärz Forschung. Wege in die Moderne. Reiseliterature im Vormärz – Neue Wege, andere Perspektiven. , 2009
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German Studies Review, 31.2 , 2008
The Napoleonic Wars fundamentally challenged German ideas of what it meant to be a man. For the f... more The Napoleonic Wars fundamentally challenged German ideas of what it meant to be a man. For the first time, women participated in these debates and publicly declared that that a new type of man was needed, one who was more martial, more patriotic, and more courageous; in short, a man who was more like the French. I read the texts by Helmina von Chézy, Amalie von Helvig, Christine Westphalen, Caroline de la Motte Fouqué, and Karoline Pichler as political documents through which these women attempted to contribute to the shaping of the emerging (and mostly imagined) German nation and the discussion of citizenship.
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Monatshefte, 2008
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Dominant Culture and the Education of Women. Ed. Julia Paulk. , 2008
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Schwellenueberschreitungen. Politik in der Literatur von Frauen, 1780-1919. Ed. Caroline Bland and Elise Müler-Adams., 2007
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Works in Progress by Karin Baumgartner
Books by Karin Baumgartner
books for women and children Caroline Fouqué, the principal voice in this study, and other authors of the period participated in the key debates of the early nineteenth century, among them the anguished discussions about the crisis in masculinity after the defeat of the Prussian army in 1806, the discourses of national identity, the construction of a national past, and the reorganization of the feudal state.
Papers by Karin Baumgartner
Keywords travel, tourism, cultural identity, Goethe’s Italienische Reise, Mariana Starke, travel narratives
books for women and children Caroline Fouqué, the principal voice in this study, and other authors of the period participated in the key debates of the early nineteenth century, among them the anguished discussions about the crisis in masculinity after the defeat of the Prussian army in 1806, the discourses of national identity, the construction of a national past, and the reorganization of the feudal state.
Keywords travel, tourism, cultural identity, Goethe’s Italienische Reise, Mariana Starke, travel narratives