(Military) Masculinity and a Feminized Europe: The Gender Politics of the Lasky Diary

Gerund K (2022)

Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes

Publication year: 2022

Publisher: Berghahn

Edited Volumes: The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II

City/Town: New York; Oxford

Pages Range: 49-58

ISBN: 978-1-80073-695-5

DOI: 10.1515/9781800736962-008

Abstract

This essay examines the gender politics of Melvin Lasky’s war diary. It analyzes Lasky’s masculine self-fashioning as a historian and intellectual and as a young soldier. It showcases how he negotiates his gendered identity vis-à-vis the hegemonic masculinity of his time. Furthermore, it examines how the document casts the transatlantic relationship in highly gendered terms: Europe appears as a feminized (and sexualized) landscape that is liberated/conquered by a predominantly male U.S. military.

Authors with CRIS profile

Katharina Gerund Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik, insbesondere nordamerikanische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft

Related research project(s)

Reeducation Revisited: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives on the Post-World War II Period in the USA, Japan, and Germany Nov. 1, 2018 - March 31, 2023

How to cite

APA:

Gerund, K. (2022). (Military) Masculinity and a Feminized Europe: The Gender Politics of the Lasky Diary. In Charlotte Lerg (Eds.), The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II. (pp. 49-58). New York; Oxford: Berghahn.

MLA:

Gerund, Katharina. "(Military) Masculinity and a Feminized Europe: The Gender Politics of the Lasky Diary." The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II. Ed. Charlotte Lerg, New York; Oxford: Berghahn, 2022. 49-58.

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