Film Studies 270 - Tpc:Trans/Queer German Cinema

'Classic German cinema, 1919-1933, anticipated many present-day gender debates. In educational films, tragedies, travesties, and comedies, many of which were re-made later (Girls in Uniform; Victor Victoria), Weimar Cinema questioned binary definitions of gender, and represented gay and lesbian sexual orientations as standard forms of human sexuality. We will study the link from Weimar to the present through films like Rosa von Praunheim's It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives and The Einstein of Sex, his biography of Magnus Hirschfeld, gay scientist and founder of the Institute of Sexual Science; and 2011-12 films by young women directors, Bernardi's Romeos, Mettke's Transpapa.'