Abstract: This article investigates the gender dynamics in Robert Walser's short stories and novels, arguing for the close relationship of the author's masochistic male protagonists to the author's own preoccupation with archaic models of servitude and his understanding of his writing as "artisanal" ( handwerklich ). These aspects of Walser's prose situate him within a gendered antimodernist discourse in German-speaking Europe. By the start of the twentieth century, and especially after World War I, the search for viable economic and political alternatives to the historical fragmentation of German-speaking lands intensified. Rejecting the technocratic economic models of Western Europe and the United States as "soulless," völkisch nationalists advocated a return to archaic forms of community ( Gemeinschaft ) that could discipline, unify, and revitalize Germanic peoples. The troubled gender dynamics of novels like Walser's Die Geschwister Tanner (1907; The Tanners , 2009), Der Gehülfe (1908; The Assistant , 2007), and Der Räuber (1925; The Robber , 2000) anticipate the antimodern, masochistic male personae that later became key to manufacturing consent to Nazism.

Abstract: Feminist scholars have often dismissed Amalia Schoppe (1791–1858) as perpetuating patriarchal gender roles and Biedermeier stereotypes in her written work. This article argues that Schoppe's writing is more political and subversive than previously acknowledged. An analysis of two of her fairy tales from 1828, "Fromm Gertrud" (Pious Gertrud) and "Die fleißige und mitleidige Hausfrau" (The kind and diligent housewife), shows that a rereading of Schoppe's work is necessary to evaluate her potential for feminist scholarship. Schoppe's housewife tales include details that subvert the traditionally accepted concept of housework and child-rearing, portraying it as domestic labor that needs to be acknowledged as such and should also be compensated. The tales reveal that Schoppe was either familiar with early-nineteenth-century socialist theories or came to similar conclusions motivated by her own experiences as a working woman who was for decades the sole breadwinner of her family.

Abstract: German-Jewish author Adrienne Thomas became a bestselling author with the pacifist novel Die Katrin wird Soldat (1930; Katrin Becomes a Soldier , 1931), but her later novels written in exile are less well known. These works— Reisen Sie ab, Mademoiselle! (1944; Travel on, mademoiselle!) and Ein Fenster am East River (1945; A window on the East River)—both romances, intervene in the contemporary 1940s discourse surrounding what it meant to be a refugee. Drawing on recent work in critical refugee studies, this article argues that Thomas adopts the popular genre of romance to show the power of friendship, love, and care in the face of racial and political persecution. The novels' refugee characters and their allies give voice to the experiences of those persecuted and displaced during the years of National Socialism, while also staging scenes of solidarity that imagine hopeful futures for refugees.