Knowledge, Science, and Literature in Early Modern Germany - (University of North Carolina Studies in Germanic Languages a) (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Early modern Germany saw the dissemination of vast quantities of information at unprecedented speed. Popular knowledge, scientific inquiry, and scholarship influenced the political order, poetic expression, public opinion, and mechanisms of social control. This collection presents twelve essays by distinguished scholars regarding the transcendent nature of the Divine, the natural world, the body, sexuality, intellectual property, aesthetics, demons, and witches.

The contributors are Thomas Cramer, Walter Haug, C. Stephen Jaeger, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Jan-Dirk Måller, James A. Parente, Jr., Stephan K. Schindler, Gerhard F. Strasser, Lynne Tatlock, Elaine Tennant, Horst Wenzel, and Gerhild Scholz Williams.

Review Quotes

"For an anthology of essays written by a dozen authors, the book has a tight focus, which is held intact largely by a common methodology that gives emphasis to close reading of the text. In this approach each author stays the course, letting the reader draw conclusions about the kind of science that is embedded in narratives inspired by poetic visions of the world."--Monatshefte

"Scholars have come to expect new perspectives and innovative critical approaches from the St. Louis symposia, and the present volume raises the standard of this already high expectation. The essays in this volume are uniformly well conceived and well edited; they represent some of the boldest new research in German literature and culture of the early modern period."--Sixteenth Century Journal

About the Author

Gerhild Scholz Williams is professor of German and comparative literature at Washington University. Stephan K. Schindler is assistant professor of German at Washington University.