Subject to change: German-language trans literatures of the ‘self’
This talk reads alongside the works of two German-language trans and gender diverse authors from different time periods and places: N.O. Body’s Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years (Berlin, 1907) and Kim de l’Horizon’s Bloodbook (Zürich, 2021). Putting these texts into relation, I discuss how both writers found productive responses to the challenge of writing the trans/gender diverse “self” between external pressures for conformity and an urgent—and often times pleasurable—exploration of gendered ways to being in the world. Since historically the medico-legal demands brought onto trans and gender diverse people were especially pronounced in countries like Germany and Switzerland—with some of these constraints persisting until today—these German-language literary texts provide a space for critical reflection on the navigation of questions around self- and external perception, genre conventions, respectability politics and intended audience(s). While centered around the question of how to write a gendered subject, I suggest that the texts have something to say about the opacities involved in writing the self per se: Was the narrative construction of a coherent self-account ever a possible narration in the first place? And if not, why do we expect these types of narratives so often precisely from trans people?
This event will be held both in-person and over Zoom. Register below to receive the Zoom link.
J. Rafael Balling
J. Rafael Balling is an Assistant Professor of German Studies and faculty at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington. He is completing a book manuscript, tentatively titled Tvishn Do Un Dortn: Stories About Jewish Transness in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century. Previous work on the intersection of trans*, queerness, and the Judaic tradition in literary texts has appeared in Dibur and Feminist German Studies, with more pieces forthcoming from Fordham University Press and De Gruyter. He is the co-editor of a special issue on “The Place of Trans* in German Studies” that will be published with Colloquia Germanica in summer 2026.
About the Tobin Lecture
The Tobin Distinguished Lecture Series was inaugurated in 2024. It brings international scholars working at the forefront of queer and trans German studies to UBC to share their scholarship with students, staff, faculty, and community members. The aim of the series is to support queer and trans German studies scholarship and teaching at UBC and to recognize important contributions to and advancement of queer and trans German studies. To find out more about the lecture, visit the Tobin Lecture page.
