Abstract #3

Male Fantasies- this text describes the political sides of German fascism and how it shaped the German culture, military cognitions and tactics that went into training of the soldiers. It discusses the idea of how the soldier was redesigned into a machine during military training. The concept of desire and pleasure was considered unnessary and a hinderance to war-time and peace-time sucess. The human body was transformed from flesh, limbs and mind into intricate tools and gears in the military machine. Ultimately, the focus was on how the soldiers were taught to "live without emotion."

Tank Girl- a graphic novel about a woman who enlists into the army and gets assigned to "Special Op's" and has one mission that doesn't go as planned. She steels some money from the operation and ends up living in solitude for a long period of time. Then she decides to start driving her tank a loop around Australia and finally is driven out into the desert and gets tricked by two military men, and ultimately kills both the men.

Freikorps- voluntary army that was assumed to be unreliable and assigned to menial duties
Maelstrom- powerful tidal current
White Terror-violence acts against real or suspected communism
Fascism- totalitarian philosophy of government that glorifies the state and nation and assigns to the state control over every aspect of national life.
Libido-is the generalized sexual energy of which conscious activity is the expression.

-What was the significance of distinguishing between the wartime and peacetime machine?
-Are the internal and external explosions bodily functions or representations of problems with the "military machines" that were being trained?
-Are all the emotions or desires associated with the distruction of a good soldier sexual? oedipal?
-What is the significance of the "masses" and all the different kinds described in Ch.1?