Narratives of female exhaustion around 1900 and 2000
Final Report Abstract
By combining a discourse-analytical and gender-theoretical perspective with a narratological approach, the project aimed to identify and systematise narratives of female exhaustion around 1900 and 2000, i.e. to analyse the respective discourses on exhaustion, femininity and labour as well as their concrete manifestation in motifs and narrative structures. The main objective of the project was to identify and analyse the synchronous and diachronic connections, i.e. the similarities between female exhaustion narratives around 1900 and 2000 and the use of narrative patterns in contemporary narrative texts of female exhaustion. The project focused on the question of how female exhaustion is narrated in literary texts around 1900 and 2000, both in dialogue with medical, psychiatric and psychoanalytical perspectives and in differentiation from them. Following on from this, it was investigated, which specific narrative practices can be seen in the representation of female exhaustion and if specific narratives of female exhaustion can be identified. The project assumed that female exhaustion is decidedly linked to social and gender-specific structures that revolve around the negotiation of labour. The corpus consisted of literary texts by female authors from the period 1895-1920 and from the period from 2000 onwards. The selection of texts was based on the central negotiation of female exhaustion, which can take the form of an implicit depiction of symptoms of exhaustion or an explicit diagnosis of illness. Furthermore, psychiatric and psychoanalytical texts that take up and construct central discourses of exhaustion were included in the analysis.
Publications
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Video-Abstract zum Projekt „Narrativer weiblicher Erschöpfung um 1900 und 2000“ (Wissenschaftstag #4GenderStudies 2022, Margherita-von-Brentano-Zentrums, FU Berlin.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Neoliberale Arbeitswelten und Erschöpfung in Kathrin Rögglas wir schlafen nicht und Kathrin Weßlings Super, und dir?. Literatur und Arbeitswelten, 57-74. Brill | Fink.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Vorstellung des Postdoc-Projekts im Portraitfilm „Gesichter aus dem Walter Benjamin-Programm der DFG“ 2023.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Schreiben in / von psychischen Krisen. Heilkraft der Literatur, 349-370. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Schwangerschaft, Mutterschaft und Erschöpfung Gabriele Reuters Das Tränenhaus und Helene Böhlaus Halbtier! In: Literaturwissenschaft in Berlin. März 2024.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Weibliche Erschöpfung als Praktik der Verweigerung und des Protests. Gabriele Reuter Aus guter Familie und Antonia Baum Vollkommen leblos, bestenfalls tot. In: Denise Dumschat-Rehfeldt et al. (Hg.): Literatur am Ende. Marburg: Büchner 2024, S. 175–188.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
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Wissenschaftliches Poster „Narrative weiblicher Erschöpfung – Zwischen Frauenbewegung und Reproduktionsarbeit“ 2024.
Fassio, Marcella Isabelle
