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Beards and Texts explores the literary portrayal of beards in medieval German texts from the mid-twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries. It argues that as the pre-eminent symbol for masculinity the beard played a distinctive role throughout the Middle Ages in literary discussions of such major themes as majesty and humanity. At the same time beards served as an important point of reference in didactic poetry concerned with wisdom, teaching and learning, and in comedic texts that were designed to make their audiences laugh, not least by submitting various figure-types to the indignity of having their beards manhandled. Four main chapters each offer a reading of a work or poetic tradition of particular significance (Pfaffe Konrad's Rolandslied; Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willehalm; 'Sangspruchdichtung'; Heinrich Wittenwiler's Ring), before examining cognate material of various kinds, including sources or later versions of the same story, manuscript variants and miniatures and further relevant beard-motifs from the same period. The book concludes by reviewing the portrayal of Jesus in vernacular German literature, which represents a special test-case in the literary history of beards. As the first study of its kind in medieval German studies, this investigation submits beard-motifs to sustained and detailed analysis in order to shed light both on medieval poetic techniques and the normative construction of masculinity in a wide range of literary genres.

Das Dissertationsprojekt fragt nach divergenten Konzeptionen von Riesen in mittelalterlichen Texttraditionen. Der Fokus liegt auf mittelhochdeutschen und lateinischen Texten mit gelegentlichen Ausflügen in die Skandinavistik und Anglistik. Der methodische Zugriff besteht aus einer Verquickung von historischer Diskursanalyse und historischer Anthropologie. Das Nebeneinander der Wissensordnungen und diskursiven Formationen wird im Zeitraum von ca. 800 n. Chr. bis etwa 1600 n. Chr. anhand von signifikanten Textausschnitten, bildlichen Darstellungen und materiellen Zeugnissen untersucht. Die Reflexion der Riesenkonzepte gliedert sich thematisch nach der biblischen, enzyklopädischen und legendarischen Tradition, der Antikenrezeption und der Heldenepik, sowie genealogischen Aspekten und der Frage nach der Wahrheit von Riesen im Mittelalter. Im Gegensatz zu früheren vereinheitlichenden oder rein motivgeschichtlichen Forschungsansätzen in der mediävistischen Germanistik rekonstruiert die Studie anhand einer differenzierten Analyse ein Mosaik unterschiedlicher Wahrnehmungen und Vorstellungen von Riesen im Mittelalter. ; Many disciplines have produced major studies about giants in medieval literature. However, Medieval German Literature Studies are lacking sufficient coverage. Therefore, the dissertation aims to fill this void with a conclusive study focusing on German medieval literature, with the occasional reference to Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian Studies. The project denies that there is a simple concept of giants in medieval literature and examines the coexistence of discursive formations from 800-1600 A.D. Methodologically, historical discourse analysis and historical anthropology are employed to answer questions such as whether giants were considered real in the Middle Ages, why heroes and giants are blending together semantically, and whether giant size could only be viewed as negative. The study emphasizes the versatile knowledge accessible about giants via biblical, encyclopedic, and hagiographic traditions, and occasionally pictures as well as material objects such as bones. Middle High German heroic epics, the reception of Greek mythology in the Middle Ages, and giants as instruments of political power are also core aspects of the thesis. The diverse nature of the subject requires a multidisciplinary approach and invites a more reflected view on giants when encountered in medieval texts, especially in Middle High German literature.

"From Goethe to Gundolf: Essays on German Literature and Culture is a collection of Roger Paulin's groundbreaking essays, spanning the last forty years. The work represents his major research interests of Romanticism and the reception of Shakespeare in Germany, but also explores a broader range of themes, from poetry and the public memorialization of poets to fairy stories - all meticulously researched, yet highly accessible.

As a comprehensive examination of German literary history in the period 1700-1900, the collection not only includes accounts of the lives and work of Goethe, Schiller, the Schlegels, and Gundolf (amongst others), serving to nuance our understanding of these figures in history, but also considers diverse (and often underexplored) topics, from academic freedom to the rise of travel literature.

The essays have been reformulated, corrected, and updated to add references to recent works. However, the core foundations of the originals remain, and just as when they were first published, the value of these essays – to researchers, students, and all those who are interested in German literary history – cannot be overstated."

Since the turn of the 21st century, countless literary endeavors by 'new Germans' have entered the spotlight of academic research. Yet 'minority writing', with its distinctive renegotiation of traditional concepts of cultural identity, is far from a recent phenomenon in German literature. A hundred years previously, the intense involvement of German-Jewish intellectuals in cultural and political discourses on Jewish identity put a clear stamp on German modernism. This book is the first to unfold literary parallels between these two riveting periods in German cultural history. Drawing on the philosophical oeuvre of Jean-Luc Nancy, a comparative reading of texts by, amongst others, Beer-Hofmann, Kermani, Özdamar, Roth, Schnitzler, and Zaimoglu examines a variety of literary approaches to the thorny issue of cultural identity, while developing an overarching perspective on the 'politics of literature'.

Attention is fundamental to how we experience reality, and yet this notion has been understood and practised in very different ways across history. This interdisciplinary study explores the dynamic relationship between attention and its supposed opposite, distraction, as it unfolds from the eighteenth century to the present day. Its primary focus is on twentieth-century Germany and Austria, where matters of (in)attention gained a unique urgency during a period of social change and political crisis. 00Building on Enlightenment practices of self-observation, nineteenth-century Germany was the birthplace of experimental psychology, a discipline which sought to measure and potentially enhance human attention. This approach was also adopted outside the psychological laboratory-for instance in the First World War, when psychological testing was used to select soldiers for particular strategic positions. After the war these techniques filtered through into everyday life. Weimar Germany was unique in the western world in rolling out the methods of 'psychotechnics' across civilian society-in fields such as work and education, advertising and mass entertainment. This state-sponsored programme aimed to reshape people's minds and behaviour in order to build a more efficient, streamlined society.00But as this study shows, this initiative also had profound repercussions in the fields of thought, literature, and culture. New readings of leading writers and intellectuals of the period-Kafka, Musil, Kracauer, Benjamin, and Adorno-are interspersed with broader cultural-historical chapters dedicated to the history of psychology and psychiatry, to Weimar self-help literature, portrait photography, and musical culture.