LEADER 03709cam a2200349Ia 4500001    39904
005    20240621144317.0
008    990415s1996    xxu     rb    000 0 eng d
035    (OCoLC)41175133
035    39904
049    LHMA
040    CLU |beng |erda |cCLU |dLHM
090    B3363.W54 |bS46 1996
100 1  Sengoopta, Chandak.
245 10 Sex, science, and self in imperial Vienna : |bOtto Weininger and the meanings of gender / |cby Chandak Sengoopta.
264  1 [Place of publication not identified] : |b[publisher not identified], |c1996.
300    vii, 485 pages
336    text |btxt |2rdacontent
337    unmediated |bn |2rdamedia
338    volume |bnc |2rdacarrier
502    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1996.
504    Includes bibliographical references (pages 466-482).
520     Otto Weininger (1880-1903) is a well-known figure in European cultural history. A young Jewish intellectual of Vienna, Weininger committed suicide after publishing a single book, Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character, 1903), in which he attempted to resolve the Woman Question by discovering the ontological significance of femininity and, subsidiarily, of Jewishness. Many intellectuals of the era admired the work immensely, despite its extreme misogyny and antisemitism. More recently, historians and cultural critics have approached Weininger's treatise as a useful compendium of turn-of-the-century antifeminism and antisemitism. This dissertation explores Weininger's complex views on gender and race, placing them within the multiple, interrelated contexts that they drew upon and reacted against: feminist and antifeminist politics; Immanuel Kant's notions on morality and the self; physicist Ernst Mach's critique of the classical concept of the self; new, experimental trends in psychological research, biological theories of sex; medical ideas on psychopathology, sexual deviance, and reproductive biology; and Viennese debates on personal, sexual, and racial identity. Weininger emerges from this analysis, not as a marginal figure, but rather as a participant in the most significant cultural and intellectual debates of fin-de-siecle Vienna. Certainly, Weininger's analyses and cultural prescriptions frequently diverged from that of other intellectuals of his time and place, but his cultural anxieties and his choice of sources and issues were recognizably mainstream. This dissertation demonstrates the multiplicity and diversity of the sources Weininger drew upon: cultural criticism, psychology and psychoanalysis, Kantian ethics, biology and medicine. Particular attention is paid to the different strategies guiding Weininger's appropriation of scientific and medical discourse. The voice of science resonates throughout Geschlecht und Charakter: Weininger's resolution of the Woman Question incorporates themes and ideas from sexual biology, medical sexology, psychoanalysis, and reproductive biology. When read in the contexts of these diverse discourses and Weininger's biography, Geschlecht und Charakter serves as a lens for the elucidation of the complex discursive relations between science, philosophy, and cultural politics in turn-of-the-century Vienna.
530    Electronic version(s)  |bavailable internally at USHMM.
533    Photocopy. |bAnn Arbor, MI : |cUMI Dissertation Services, |d1998. |e23 cm.
590     Dissertations and Theses
591    Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024
600 10 Weininger, Otto, |d1880-1903.
956 41  |u http://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib39904/9629499.pdf  |z Hosted by USHMM.
994    E0 |bLHM
852 0   |bstacks |hB3363.W54 S46 1996
852     |bebook