The last two decades have been transformational, often discordant ones for German feminism, as a new cohort of activists has come of age and challenged many of the movement’s strategic and philosophical orthodoxies. Mad Mädchen offers an incisive analysis of these trans-generational debates, identifying the mother-daughter themes and other tropes that have defined their representation in German literature, film, and media. Author Margaret McCarthy investigates female subjectivity as it processes political discourse to define itself through both differences and affinities among women. Ultimately, such a model suggests new ways of re-imagining feminist solidarity across generational, ethnic, and racial lines.

The last two decades have been transformational, often discordant ones for German feminism, as a new cohort of activists has come of age and challenged many of the movement’s strategic and philosophical orthodoxies. Mad Mädchen offers an incisive analysis of these trans-generational debates, identifying the mother-daughter themes and other tropes that have defined their representation in German literature, film, and media. Author Margaret McCarthy investigates female subjectivity as it processes political discourse to define itself through both differences and affinities among women. Ultimately, such a model suggests new ways of re-imagining feminist solidarity across generational, ethnic, and racial lines.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. German Feminism in the 2000s: Brains, Bodies, and Bridges
Chapter 2. Lost Objects, Monsters, and Melancholia in Zöe Jenny’s The Pollen Room (1999), Alexa Hennig von Lange’s Relax (1999), and Elke Naters’ Lies (1999)
Chapter 3. Dialogical and Borderline Selfhood in Charlotte Roche’s Wetlands (2008) and Wrecked (2011)
Chapter 4. Girls Gone Wild: Ulrike Meinhof, Uschi Obermeier, and Feminist Fantasies of ‘68
Chapter 5. Counter-Cinema, Crossing Bridges, and Future Feminisms: Christian Petzold’s The State I Am In (2000) and Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven (2007)
Chapter 6. Mutable Mädchen: on Screen and in the Streets

Bibliograhpy
Index