Dr. Boovy analyzes a selection of paintings by German artist, Otto Dix, from the years following World War I. He focuses on the ways in which the painter used depictions of veteran amputees to critique the gendered impacts of war on German and European society. Situating Dix’s postwar painting within a larger history of disability representation, Dr. Boovy will point to the ways in which Dix instrumentalizes disability through his depiction of prosthetic male bodies in order to re-envision postwar German masculinity. Further, he argues that a critical disability studies framework can amplify our understanding of the role that gender, medical technologies, and the body play in German and European visual culture.

Bradley Boovy is Assistant Professor of German and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University where he coordinates the German program for the Corvallis campus and teaches courses on German language and literature, men and masculinities, gender studies, and queer studies. Dr. Boovy’s research interests include twentieth-century German literary and cultural studies, critical language pedagogy, and queer and feminist theories. His work has appeared in the Women in German Yearbook, Die Unterrichtspraxis, L2 Journal, Monatshefte, Choice Reviews and Archival Practice, among others. He is currently completing a monograph on West German gay magazines in the early Cold War titled Masculinity and the Magazine: Sexuality, Race, and Belonging in 1950s West Germany.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.