What is currently at stake in gender history? Have ‚women’s history’ and the ambitions of a new ‚men’s history’ hit the wall? Current debates are not only characterized by emphasizing the differences between women and men or masculinity and femininity. Instead, the focus has shifted to gender relations, ambivalences inherent to gender roles, and border crossings. Now that we are able to perceive an ambiguous and diverse spectrum of gender identities, queer relations questioning seemingly universal norms have become another focus of our attention. Next to ‚gender’, ‚queer’ can now be seen as a seminal category of analysis in the study of history. The analysis of historical processes thus is now facing new challenges.
Frauen – Männer – Queer shows how innovative and productive these new perspectives can be for current research ranging from a focus on antiquity to the present day. The topics dealt with in Frauen – Männer – Queer include sports, technology and material culture, the media, clubs and societies, as well as discourses on the body, suicide, or sleep in modern times.