Encountering Precarious Archives

Methodological Challenges and Approaches in Historical Research on the Lives and Persecution of Homosexual Men

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23777/sn.0223/art_jmks01

Keywords:

Salon der Hundert, Public history, methodological approaches, Archives, Queer History, Queering archives, homosexual men

Abstract

This article confronts methodological challenges, and alternative solutions, to historical research on the cultures and persecution fates of homosexual men between 1925 and 1975 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It delineates historical sources of the persecutorial institutions found in hegemonic archives and outlines their potential for the research on the Lebenswelten (lifeworlds) of homosexual men. In addition, it highlights the benefits of a research framework informed by cultural studies and a praxeological perspective. Furthermore, this article emphasises the work of Public History as a means of creating additional sources and accessing more remote and heterogeneous archival holdings, and, subsequently, as a method of queering the (precarious) archives as we encounter them. The research on the Salon der Hundert (founded in 1969), a club in Tübingen, and the consequential public history discourse enables us to learn about how homosexual men and their community individually
and collectively strategised to establish Lebenswelten. Its history gives us insight into the agency of a collective and the importance of spaces and their creation

Author Biographies

  • Julia Noah Munier, University of Stuttgart

    Julia Noah Munier, PhD, is an art and cultural scientist. Since 2016, Dr Munier has been examining state repression under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code as a re­ searcher in the Department of Modern History at the University of Stuttgart. Under Prof Wolfram Pyta, Dr Munier is currently spearheading the research project “LSBTTIQ in Baden und Württemberg: Lebenswelten, Repression und Verfolgung im National­ sozialismus und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland”, and finishing their third book, which focuses on the legal and social repression of homosexual men in Baden­Würt­ temberg in the post­war period. Dr Munier received funding for their doctorate from the German Research Foundation (DFG), and was an active member of their research train­ ing group “Selbst­Bildungen: Practices of Subjectivation in Historical and Interdiscipli­ nary Perspective” based at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Her previ­ ous books include Lebenswelten und Verfolgungsschicksale homosexueller Männer in Baden und Württemberg im 20. Jahrhundert (2021) and Sexualisierte Nazis: Erinnerungs­ kulturelle Subjektivierungspraktiken in Deutungsmustern von Nationalsozialismus und italienischem Faschismus (2017).

  • Karl-Heinz Steinle, University of Stuttgart

    Karl-Heinz Steinle, M.A., studied History and Slavic Studies in Heidelberg and Berlin. He is the Public Historian in the University of Stuttgart research project “LSBTTIQ in Baden und Württemberg: Lebenswelten, Repression und Verfolgung im Nationalsozial­ ismus und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland”. He has been managing director of the Schwules Museum Berlin and acted as a research assistant for the City Archive of Tübingen’s project “Queer durch Tübingen”. Since 2014, he has been professionally consulting on the historic context and relevancy of collections and private estates, and he has contributed to the curation of several exhibition projects. He is also a team member of the “Archive of Other Memories” of the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Founda­ tion. Karl­Heinz Steinle has produced numerous exhibitions, publications, translations, lectures, and scientific contributions on individual biographies and various aspects of the cultural history of homosexuals and trans people in Germany, Switzerland, and Rus­ sia during the period from 1919 to the present.

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Published

2023-11-23

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2023): S:I.M.O.N. – SHOAH: INTERVENTION. METHODS. DOCUMENTATION.

Section

ARTICLES

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Julia Munier

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How to Cite

“Encountering Precarious Archives: Methodological Challenges and Approaches in Historical Research on the Lives and Persecution of Homosexual Men ”. 2023. S: I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 10 (2): 31-49. https://doi.org/10.23777/sn.0223/art_jmks01.