Uniform Fantasies

Uniform Fantasies explores the intimate entanglements between military politics and queer sexual politics in Germany during the decades leading up to the First World War.

Jeffrey Schneider is an associate professor of German Studies at Vassar College.

"Uniform Fantasies is an intriguing analysis of German militarism from the unique perspective offered by Slavoj Žižek’s blend of Marx and Lacan. Schneider demonstrates the important but extraordinarily complex role that the fascination with military uniforms played in the queer scene, in the literature of Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and in the wider realm of German culture and politics prior to the First World War."

Dagmar Herzog, Distinguished Professor of History, Graduate Center, City University of New York:

"In centring questions of fantasy as well as the paradoxes and ambivalences of erotic desire, and exploring the astonishingly myriad ways controversies over German militarism intersected with arguments about gender and sex, Schneider provides a wholly fresh take on the cultural context in which the first queer rights movement in the world was born. Ingenious original readings of novels by the mutually warring Mann brothers are a particular highlight."

Robert M. Beachy, Associate Professor of History, Underwood International College at Yonsei University:

"Schneider’s broad analysis of the cultural significance of ‘soldier love’ – Soldatenliebe – provides an original and important contribution to the queer history of Wilhelmine Germany. It tackles a theme that is often mentioned but never fully explored, namely the homoerotic componentof German and particularly Prussian militarism."