Abstract

This dissertation project examines, in the context of a discourse analysis and gender-theoretical analysis, the potential diversity of hegemonic masculinity concepts in military contexts. In connection with de/constructivist approaches, processuality, instability and performance of gender represent the central focus of the project. It especially concentrates on discourses of military masculinity in the politically “left-wing” milieu during the First World War and the First Austrian Republic until 1934. Following cultural- and gender-historical investigations of the first half of the 20^th century, a research perspective was chosen that perceives developments between 1914 and 1934 both as ruptures and as continuities. 

The discursively negotiated dimensions of meaning and interpretation, figures, imaginations and negative foils of miliary and proletarian-“militant” concepts of masculinity in the Imperial (and) Royal Army, the “People’s Defense” (Volkswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces (Bundesheer) and the Republican Protection League (Republikanischer Schutzbund) are the central focus of the project. Additionally, interactions with contemporaneously existing martial, revolutionary, republican and proletarian identities are examined. 

Supervision: Univ.-Prof.in Mag.a Dr.in Heidrun Zettelbauer