Cornelie Usborne – författare

This book analyses how the Weimar Republic put Germany in the forefront of social reform and women's emancipation with wide-ranging maternal welfare programmes and labour protection laws. Its enlightened policy of family planning and liberalised abortion laws offered women a new measure of control over their lives. But the new politics of the body also increased state intervention, the power of the medical profession and the tendency to sacrifice women's rights to national interests whenever the Volk seemed in danger of 'racial decline'.

Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors’ case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was “a necessary evil,” which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women’s own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This book analyses how the Weimar Republic put Germany in the forefront of social reform and women''s emancipation with wide-ranging maternal welfare programmes and labour protection laws. Its enlightened policy of family planning and liberalised abortion laws offered women a new measure of control over their lives. But the new politics of the body also increased state intervention, the power of the medical profession and the tendency to sacrifice women''s rights to national interests whenever the Volk seemed in danger of ''racial decline''.

This book analyses how the Weimar Republic put Germany in the forefront of social reform and women's emancipation with wide-ranging maternal welfare programmes and labour protection laws. Its enlightened policy of family planning and liberalised abortion laws offered women a new measure of control over their lives. But the new politics of the body also increased state intervention, the power of the medical profession and the tendency to sacrifice women's rights to national interests whenever the Volk seemed in danger of 'racial decline'.

Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors’ case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was “a necessary evil,” which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women’s own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This work explores the construction of gender norms and examines how they were reflected and reinforced by legal institutional practices in Europe in this period. taking a gendered approach, criminal prosecution and punishment are discussed in relation to the victims and perpretrators. This volume investigates various representations of femininity by assessing female experiences including wife-beating, divorce, abortion, prostitution, property crime and embezzlement at the work place. In addition, issues such as neglect, sexual abuse and the "invention" of the juvenile offender are analyzed.

This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blécourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages. It includes contributions from historians, anthropologists, literary scholars and folklorists who have collaborated closely with De Blécourt. Essays pick up some or all of the themes and approaches he pioneered, and apply them to cases which range in time and space across all the main regions of Europe since the thirteenth century until the present day. While some draw heavily on texts, others on archival sources, and others on field research, they all share a commitment to reconstructing the meaning and lived experience of witchcraft (and its related phenomena) to Europeans at all levels, respecting the many varieties and ambiguities in such meanings and experiences and resisting attempts to reduce them to master narratives or simple causal models.The chapter 'News from the Invisible World: The Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c.1660-1832' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blécourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages. It includes contributions from historians, anthropologists, literary scholars and folklorists who have collaborated closely with De Blécourt. Essays pick up some or all of the themes and approaches he pioneered, and apply them to cases which range in time and space across all the main regions of Europe since the thirteenth century until the present day. While some draw heavily on texts, others on archival sources, and others on field research, they all share a commitment to reconstructing the meaning and lived experience of witchcraft (and its related phenomena) to Europeans at all levels, respecting the many varieties and ambiguities in such meanings and experiences and resisting attempts to reduce them to master narratives or simple causal models.The chapter ''News from the Invisible World: The Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c.1660-1832'' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.