"Awarded two prizes for outstanding scholarship in theater studies, Ethnic Drag has also set new standards for critical rigor and medium-specific analysis of German culture since 1945. Erudite, ambitious, and compelling, this interdisciplinary study deftly draws on feminist theories of gender and masquerade, queer theories of sexuality and transvestitism, critical theories of race and minstrelsy, postcolonial theories of ambivalence and mimicry, and dramatic theories of mimesis and impersonation to illuminate the interplay of collective anxieties and representational paradigms in performance cultures high and low. In Katrin Sieg's capable hands 'ethnic drag' is a sophisticated tool for understanding specific material practices of performativity as well as pivotal ways in which German culture since 1945 has interpreted, negotiated, forestalled, or refashioned the meaning of twentieth-century history in the wake of war and genocide. Pioneering and seminal, Ethnic Drag is what I would call an indispensable book."
—Leslie A. Adelson, Professor of German Studies, Cornell University
— Leslie A. Adelson
"Katrin Sieg's detailed account of ethnic drag as an index of the ways in which West Germans have engaged with, disavowed, and contested race in the post-Nazi period not only makes for fascinating reading but also expands and redefines contemporary theoretical debates about masquerade and performativity."
—Theatre Journal
— Helen Gilb, Theatre Journal
". . . an enticing, superbly documented, and exceptionally well-written account of the phantasmatic self-representations and impersonations of ethnicity in late-twentieth-century Germany. . . . Embedding her analysis in feminist, queer, and critical race theory, Sieg shows how the German emulation and usurpation of ethnicities is linked not only to radical reification but also to performative attempts at transformation. Katrin Sieg, in short, has produced an exceptional historical ethnography of postwar German ethnicities in the making. . . . It ought to be read by all scholars interested in German Studies, whether in the humanities or social sciences. Graduate students, as well as upper division undergraduates should be encouraged to discuss this work in class."
—Uli Linke, H-Net Reviews
— Uli Linke, H-Net Reviews, Rochester Inst of Technology, H-Net Reviews
"Replacing the older notion of impersonation, Sieg argues that drag can uncover how race intersects with national identity and gender and simultaneously articulates and represses German postwar traumas and conflicts in drag masquerades. By organizing her extraordinarily dense, lucid, and sophisticated study around this concept, Sieg challenges the distinction between high canonical art and crass mass entertainment. . . . Deftly merging Brecht's dramaturgy with feminist, postcolonial, and queer theories, Sieg creates a superb methodological framework demonstrating how ethnicity and performance (should) ultimately coalesce. This brilliant study is an outstanding contribution to German cultural studies."
—M. Shafi, University of Delaware, Choice, April 2003
— M. Shafi, University of Delaware, Choice
". . . a rich and important scholarly work, clearing promising new territory for cultural historians and identity theorists."
—Theatre Research International
— Carol Burbank, Univ of Maryland, College Park, Theatre Research International