Dr. Kyle Frackman, Assistant Professor in CENES, has been awarded an Insight Grant of nearly $73,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to study the experiences of queer people in East Germany.
Dr. Frackman’s project, titled “Coming Out of the Iron Closet: Queer Lives in East Germany,” focuses on depictions of sexuality in the socialist state, which existed from 1949 until 1990. Frackman’s research argues that the appearance and treatment of queer sexuality in East Germany is a crucial area in which to examine the functioning of the state. Related state actions, which could either allow, ignore, or prohibit queer affections and their appearance in public, have effects on literature, films, visual art, and personal relationships, for example. Analyses of these sites can reveal the extent to which East Germans’ public and private lives affected each other.
East Germany had an ambivalent relationship with homosexuality, at first criminalizing it before eventually tolerating it, though as a taboo. Despite efforts by activists from the 1950s through the 1970s, it was only in the 1980s that lesbians and gay men achieved wider visibility and recognition in East Germany. Beyond their difficulties in achieving equitable access to private and public services, lesbians and gay men were frequently the targets of surveillance by the Ministry of State Security known as the Stasi.
The research project will include interviews, graduate student training, archival research, and distribution of research results in presentations and published work.
Link: UBC Researchers Attract over $21M in SSHRC Funding
