Sensitive Subjects: The Political Aesthetics of Contemporary German and Austrian Cinema by Leila Mukhida (review)

Vanderbeke). Among these chapters, the essays on films offer the most convincing application of the analytical framework; the tender gaze, however, also proves to offer productive insights into the politics of representation in literary works. In some cases, the authors struggle to illustrate how the tender gaze functions as a political intervention. Doris Dörrie’s film Keiner liebt mich (1994), for example, offers great examples of how the tender gaze creates spaces for empathy across racial, sexual, and gender divides. One wonders, however, how the tender gaze might obscure or fail to address some of the uncritical appropriations in the film that also perpetuate certain racist stereotypes. As the authors state at various points in the book, the reception of artworks is not homogenous. Thus, the question is not only whether or not the artworks are “moving” (89), but also of whom they move and in what way. This is where the concept becomes more complicated to apply: while analyzing the tender gaze as enacted on-screen between characters or within narrative structures proves very insightful, it remains more ambiguous and possibly even contradictory when it is applied to the process of reception. Overall, the examples in the volume convincingly show that theater, film, and literature manifest a new relationship to the political by depicting and eliciting tenderness, compassion, care, and “perspective taking” (41); it is challenging to assess how this might translate into broader shifts in political perspectives and action. The volume impressively and convincingly illustrates how productive the concept of the tender gaze is to analyze complex political interventions in film, literature, and art; it also inspires scholars to explore the concept further. One wonders, for example, how one might read social media with the tender gaze in mind? There also might be analytical value in creating contrasts and examining tensions: What, for example, is the opposite of a tender gaze and what does it mean when a gaze merely pretends to be tender? Beyond the gaze, it could be productive to think about tender touch, sound, images, and narratives circulating in different cultural spheres. Maria Stehle, University of Tennessee Knoxville