Martin Duberman returns to the Bureau for a reading from his latest novel, Jews Queers Germans.
Jews Queers Germans recreates the intimate milieu around Kaiser Wilhelm II of pre-Weimar Germany, a time period during which queer life flourished —albeit secretly—throughout the major cities of Germany. The story revolves around three men: Prince Philipp von Eulenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s closest friend, who becomes the subject of a notorious 1907 trial for homosexuality; Magnus Hirschfeld, a famed Jewish sexologist who gives testimony at the trial; and Count Harry Kessler, a leading proponent of modernism and the keeper of a famous set of diaries that lay out in intimate detail the major social, artistic, and political events of the day and allude as well to his own homosexuality. Adhering closely to the historical record, Duberman portrays the gay life of a very upper-crust intellectual milieu at a time when old-world mores still mattered, and yet art and the social sciences were spiraling quickly toward the modern.
Suggested donation $10.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
May20, 7.00pm
208 W 13th Street, Rm 210
New York, NY 10011 United States