WIG 2000: Feminism and the Future of Germanistik

WIG 2000: Feminism and the Future of Germanistik Jeanette Clausen and Sara Friedrichsmeyer The publication of this volume marks twenty years of Women in German and ten years of the WIG Yearbook. For a reminder of just how far we have come, we need only look at the first issue of the WIG newsletter, dated 10 December 1974, which invited Germanistinnen to exchange information on their research and teaching as well as their thoughts on how to combat sexism and increase the participation of women in the profession. As the editors wrote: "Everything remains to be done" (4). And they meant that quite literally, for not only did men outnumber women in academic departments at the time, but the works of women writers were often out of print, there were almost no useful publications or even bibliographies on German women writers of any period, feminist criticism was not widely considered to be a legitimate area of scholarly activity, and feminist theories were just beginning to be elaborated in various disciplines. The energy and creativity that feminist professors and graduate students applied to the filling of those gaps is a fascinating and encouraging story in itself. One WIG member has characterized the role of the organization as making possible "ein gewisses Vertrauen in die Möglichkeiten, den Beruf anders ausfüllen zu können, ein Bewußtsein, Teil eines kollektiven Projekts zu sein" and especially as supporting the belief "daß wissenschaftliche Arbeit und politische Diskussionen entscheidend zur Veränderung der Wissens- und Machtverhältnisse in einer Institution wie der Universität beitragen können" (Martin 169). WIG's successes are apparent, first of all, in the very presence of a feminist critique in Germanistik and equally so in the fact that more German women writers are being studied and taught than ever before (Blackwell, Fries). Further, WIG members are highly visible and well respected within the profession, and the WIG Yearbook has become a valued publication, as attested to by the overwhelmingly positive reviews from scholars both within and outside of the organization. Numbers also help to tell the story: WIG membership has grown to over 600 and the yearbook has almost doubled in size since its early volumes; the editors receive many more manuscripts every year than can possibly be accepted and have entertained the idea of beginning twice-yearly publications. The Women in German Yearbook 10 (1994) 268WIG 2000: Feminism and the Future of Germanistik range of theoretical perspectives, the sophistication of critical approaches, and the insistence on an interdisciplinary focus evident in the contributions of WIG members to conference programs and to recent issues of the yearbook all reflect the kinds of impressive changes our organization has brought to Germanistik. Yet, our success in reaching an audience outside of WIG itself is still limited. Although WIG's membership list—as well as the names and affiliations of the yearbook's Editorial Board members, contributors, and referees—shows that we are becoming an increasingly international organization, we are our readers, for the most part. This situation is not unique to WIG or to Germanistik. In a recent Signs article titled "Issues for an International Feminist Literary Criticism, " Amy Kaminsky laments that although feminist scholarship has become increasingly interdisciplinary , "it has paid little attention to feminist work on and in other literatures "; this she attributes in part to the capacity of "the already empowered center... to reproduce itself" (213), as well as to literary scholars' widespread lack of proficiency in other languages (222). In her description of an international feminist literary criticism, her distinction between a global and a universalizing perspective is especially germane: "The universalizing text starts from a fixed point that creates itself as a de facto center. Everything that enters its purview is seen with reference to that center and is incorporated, assimilated, or ignored according to the center's own point of reference and its demands. A global perspective, on the other hand, presupposes multiple reference points. . . [and] many sites for making meaning and interpreting reality" (215). The importance of assuming multiple reference points has often been demonstrated in the context of avoiding falsely universalizing categories such as "woman," and this assumption can also be the...