Elisabeth Krimmer
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Elisabeth Krimmer is an American academic whose work has focused on war and gender studies in German literature and society. Inspired by her mother's silence on the subject of war in German history, Krimmer's work has focused on uncovering the roles and experiences of women in war. Among her works are books exploring women who dressed as men to become soldiers and books which collected women's remembrances as victims and perpetrators of The Holocaust. She has also written works evaluating women's roles as depicted in film and in leadership positions. She co-wrote with Susanne Kord Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities: Gender, Genre, and Politics, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of the Association of College and Research Libraries in 2012.
Early life and education
Elisabeth Krimmer was born in 1967. Her parents were of German heritage. When she was growing up, her father spoke of German involvement in World War II, but her mother rarely spoke about it, causing Krimmer to ponder the silence of women. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1994 to 1998, earning her Phd with a thesis, Offizier und Amazone: Grauen in Mãnnerkleidung in der deutschen Literatur um 1800 (Officer and Amazon: Terror in Men's Clothing in German Literature around 1800.Career
After her graduation, Krimmer taught as an assistant professor at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Missouri, Amherst College, and Georgetown University, between 1998 and 2004. She was hired as an assistant professor at University of California, Davis in 2004 and was promoted to associate professor in 2006. Krimmer became a full professor in 2010 and chair of the German and Russian department the following year.Research
Many of Krimmer's works examine the depiction in German literature of war between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first book, In the Company of Men: Cross-Dressed Women around 1800 examined women who dressed as men, at a time when doing so was illegal, to serve as soldiers or for traveling, and those who played the breeches role in theatrical productions. The book covered well-known figures like Anne Bonny, Catalina de Erauso, and the Chevalier d'Éon, as well as lesser known figures like Mary Lacey and Happy Ned, also known as Elizabeth Taylor, and Harriet Ormiston. The work examined the social conflicts between women being put to death for wearing men's clothing in battle and literary depictions of saintliness for the same actions, such as for Joan of Arc. It also explored the use of women's cross-dressing in literary works by both male and female authors, notably Goethe, as a means of analyzing gender, identity, and morality in German culture. According to Krimmer, the literary depictions of women who cross-dress generally take two forms, one in which the body plays no part in the revelation of the success of the disguise, and the other in which the biological sex is revealed. By analyzing the varied depictions, the culturally-constructed nature of gender is examined, but according to scholar Edward T. Potter, Krimmer warns that cross-dressing was not a guarantee of liberation for women from culturally defined roles. She returned to examination of the constructed nature of gender roles in her article, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Paternity and Bildung in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre". The article examined Goethe's recognition that fatherhood played a social role regardless of paternity.Other works by Krimmer dealing with the topic of war include The Representation of War in German Literature from 1800 to the Present, which focuses on eight authors, and six wars to show how authors often replicate the rationales for war even if they are critical of it. Drawing on texts by writers such as Elfriede Jelinek, Heinrich von Kleist, Ernst Jünger, Erich Maria Remarque, and Friedrich Schiller she examined the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, World Wars I and II, the Yugoslav conflicts and the Iraq War. Reviewer Gordana-Dana Grozdanic stated that the work was "thought-provoking and engaging", but that it paid insufficient attention to how views of war and peace had changed over time. Grozdanic also said that Krimmer sampled such a small portion of the literature that it might imply continuity where none existed, and that Krimmer assumed that the authors were following a "pacifist agenda" without adequately explaining the meaning of that term. In German Women's Life Writing and the Holocaust Krimmer hoped to fill the void on women's experiences of war by examining diaries, memoirs, and autobiographical novels to uncover "how German women reflected in their writing on their own entanglement with" the Nazi regime. The book looked at various aspects of women's participation including those who were complicit in the crimes of the regime and those who were victims was awarded the Goethe Essay Prize of the Goethe Society of North America of 2005. Another article, "The Gender of Terror: War as Moral Institution in Kleist's Hermannsschlacht and Penthesilea" published in 2008 in The German Quarterly, won the annual Max Kade Best Article Prize for that year. Her book Contemporary Hollywood Masculinities: Gender, Genre, and Politics, co-written with Susanne Kord, was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of the Association of College and Research Libraries in 2012.