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The Archive and the Closet: Same-Sex Desire and Military Service in Stefan Wolter’s Autobiographical Writing

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Tom Smith

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Abstract

This article analyses Stefan Wolter's memoir of his service as a Bausoldat in the Nationale Volksarmee: Hinterm Horizont allein — Der ‘Prinz’ von Prora (2005). I suggest the term ‘archival narrative’ to describe its narrative made up of juxtapositions of different sources and to draw attention to archival forces of selection, preservation and omission which the text displays. Wolter scrutinizes his documents of military service and highlights their inadequacy as evidence of his same-sex relationship, drawing attention to traces of his anxieties about revealing once closeted desires. The text therefore invites a reading through the archive theories of Jacques Derrida and José Esteban Muñoz, as well as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's concept of the closet. Wolter offers a uniquely candid account of same-sex desire in the East German military. He shows the effects of a closet defined by concealment, tacit knowledge and the threat of exposure on the documentation and archivization of queer experiences. Above all, he suggests ways of preserving evidence of same-sex desire without neglecting experiences of closeting and suppression.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Smith T

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Oxford German Studies

Year: 2016

Volume: 45

Issue: 2

Pages: 198-211

Print publication date: 11/07/2016

Online publication date: 11/07/2016

Acceptance date: 20/01/2016

ISSN (print): 0078-7191

ISSN (electronic): 1745-9214

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00787191.2016.1156855

DOI: 10.1080/00787191.2016.1156855

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