A MASOCHISTIC HOMO-HISTORY. A READING OF THE BERLIN 'SCHWULES MUSEUM' (Masochistyczna homo-historia. Lektura berlinskiego 'Schwules Museum')

The permanent exhibition at the Berlin 'Schwules Museum' - approached as a historical as well as historiographic text; as a venue of remembrance; plus, as an institution that shapes and imposes a certain image of the past; as a collection of scholarly discourses; and, an archive providing a model of cognition - has been subject to a critical reading within the new humanities horizon, situated between a history of homosexualism and a homo-history - hence, between a universalistic narrative within the traditional academic 'grand story' that precludes 'otherness' on the grounds of the 'power-knowledge-delight' system, and, a self-counter-history harnessed to fight for justice and to a new identity politics that is backed with methodological instruments of the queer theory and gay and lesbian studies.