Reforming the Moral Subject: Ethics and Sexuality in Central Europe, 1890–1930. By Tracie Matysik. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2008. Pp. xiii þ 257. Cloth $45.00. ISBN 978-0-8014-4712-9.

摘要

Tracie Matysik’s book is a compelling and original account of the concern withnethics and the constitution of moral norms in Germany and Austria from 1890–n1930. Matysik does not provide a synthesis of all the various organizations andnintellectuals who used ethics to inquire into challenges to meaning-conferringnhuman action by industrialization and secularization at the fin-de-sie `cle.nRather, she demonstrates how debates about ethics, whether conceived as thentranshistorical ground of moral claims (Ethik) or normative morality (Sittlich-nkeit), reveal how dynamic, unstable, and contested even the most self-evidentnpresumptions about moral claims, identity, and behavior prove to be. She isnalso concerned with the centrality of sexuality to these discussions, whichnengaged a diverse array of intellectuals and social activists, in particular thosenwith ties to the Social Democratic Party. Indeed, she shows how culturalncrisis was often defined by reference to the transformation of sexual norms.