Dr Douglas Pretsell

Dr Douglas Pretsell's Qualifications (1)

PhD
Doctor of Philosopy

Status Complete

Part Time No

Years 2017 - 2021

Project Title The Age of the Urning: Queer Identities and Advocacy in Germany, 1864-1897

Project Description THESIS ABSTRACT:
When Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published his new ‘urning’ terminology in 1864, he changed the lives of his male same-sex attracted readers. From that point on, and for the next thirty-three years until 1897 when Magnus Hirschfeld convened the first formal meeting of a queer advocacy group, they called themselves urnings. They engaged with Ulrichs to negotiate the finer points of their new identity and then set about trying to change the world around them.
With no formal organisation and, after Ulrichs left the scene, no spokesperson, the men who called themselves urnings have been neglected by historians of queer Germany. It is as if nothing happened between the point Ulrichs laid down his pen for the last time and the meeting convened in 1897. This thesis changes the narrative by focussing on the men who followed Ulrichs in the years between 1864 and 1897. Using correspondence, in particular the letters from urnings quoted in Ulrichs’ works, this thesis maps out the contours of the urning movement. By supplementing the letters with memoirs, journalism, psychiatric literature, and state records, this thesis has also profiled the characters that populate the urning world.
The picture that emerges is of a growing society of urnings organising in networks, lobbying psychiatrists, using their positions to influence policy and official practice and communicating their new models of sexual identity internationally. When Hirschfeld held his first meeting in 1897, he could do so because a visible urning network supported him, science was mostly on his side, and the Berlin police were wholehearted allies. All this had been achieved by urnings in the years before they were formally organised. These men were self-identified, self-constructed agents of their own destinies. This was the Age of the Urning.

Awarding Institution La Trobe University

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2017 - 2021
Project Title	The Age of the Urning: Queer Identities and Advocacy in Germany, 1864-1897
Project Description	THESIS ABSTRACT: When Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published his new ‘urning’ terminology in 1864, he changed the lives of his male same-sex attracted readers. From that point on, and for the next thirty-three years until 1897 when Magnus Hirschfeld convened the first formal meeting of a queer advocacy group, they called themselves urnings. They engaged with Ulrichs to negotiate the finer points of their new identity and then set about trying to change the world around them. With no formal organisation and, after Ulrichs left the scene, no spokesperson, the men who called themselves urnings have been neglected by historians of queer Germany. It is as if nothing happened between the point Ulrichs laid down his pen for the last time and the meeting convened in 1897. This thesis changes the narrative by focussing on the men who followed Ulrichs in the years between 1864 and 1897. Using correspondence, in particular the letters from urnings quoted in Ulrichs’ works, this thesis maps out the contours of the urning movement. By supplementing the letters with memoirs, journalism, psychiatric literature, and state records, this thesis has also profiled the characters that populate the urning world. The picture that emerges is of a growing society of urnings organising in networks, lobbying psychiatrists, using their positions to influence policy and official practice and communicating their new models of sexual identity internationally. When Hirschfeld held his first meeting in 1897, he could do so because a visible urning network supported him, science was mostly on his side, and the Berlin police were wholehearted allies. All this had been achieved by urnings in the years before they were formally organised. These men were self-identified, self-constructed agents of their own destinies. This was the Age of the Urning.
Awarding Institution	La Trobe University