Topographies of sexuality: Space, movement, and gender in German literature and film since 1989

This dissertation examines the thematic intersections of space and the gender/sexuality system in post-1989 German literature and film. It argues that unlike in traditional travel narratives, in which both travel and sexual experience often lead to the identity development of the protagonist, in contemporary German literature and film, characters find themselves comfortable in disorientation and resist settling either in terms of space or a stable gender/sexual identity. Characters in contemporary works by Fatih Akin, Judith Hermann, Bodo Kirchhoff, Christian Kracht, Angela Krauß, and Emine Sevgi Özdamar, among others, undertake travel within reunified Germany and abroad with frequency and ease, and this travel is almost always coupled with sexual experimentation and gender disorientation. In investigating these thematic intersections, this project takes into consideration popular and theoretical discourses on space and gender that have gained currency in the latter half of the twentieth century.