The articles in this special issue explore the question of the relationship between 'idyll' and 'gender' in exemplary contexts. The 18th century appears to be a transitional period in two respects. According to the starting point, this period not only saw the transformation of early modern pastoral poetry into a bourgeois idyll, as has been described by many researchers, but this genre-historical transformation also went hand in hand with the transformation of gender orders and thus the way in which pastoral texts and idylls construct gender(s) and desire also changed over the course of the 18th century. If the history of the genre can be read as a tense interplay between the confirmation of established and the opening up of alternative conceptions of gender and desire, the question arises as to how 18th-century pastoral poetry can be categorised in this respect.

To the publisher's page.

This year's yearbook of the Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung is dedicated to the uncanny in all its breadth and diversity and shows how it is negotiated and developed in various media - from radio plays, novels and comics to films and computer games. The contributions address the topic from various theoretical as well as object-orientated perspectives, often with reference to Sigmund Freud's reflections.

With contributions by Sabrina Dunja Schneider and others.

The yearbook is available as Open Access here.

Abdias lives as a proud, successful trader in an African desert town, but then everything is taken from him: He falls ill, robbers plunder his house and his wife dies in childbirth. He emigrates to Europe with his daughter Ditha, who receives all his care. But happiness does not return. Stifter's literary breakthrough came in 1842 with the story Abdias.

To the publisher's page.

This volume of essays explores the question of the link between medical knowledge and aesthetic procedures, focussing on the narrative of diagnosis as a connection between medical, literary and social discourse. The starting point of the volume is the hypothesis that literary texts from around 1800 to the present day develop 'diagnostic modes of writing' and thus establish diagnosis as a narrative typical of modernity. When analysing figures of diagnostics, the first step is to look within the text for literary figures who diagnose or who are given a diagnosis. Doctors, patients and diagnostic situations depicted in literary texts since the mid-19th century will be analysed. In this context, the link between medical and literary diagnostics also raises the question of rhetorical figures: for literary procedures can be analysed as 'diagnostic modes of writing' independently of the actors involved. This means that literary texts not only adopt subjects related to medicine, but also aestheticise the course of illnesses and thus subordinate them to a literary principle. In this way, they can attempt to override medical logic. Finally, writer-doctors and writers as actors within the narrative must also be analysed. At least for the doctors among them, clinical training as diagnosticians is important.

With contributions by Urte Helduser, Ella M. Karnatz, Thomas Boyken, Sabine Kyora and others.

To the publisher's page.

In her lecture, the renowned Schwarz researcher Dr Monika Schneikart (Greifswald) will present a fragment of a drama by the Baroque poet Sibylla Schwarz (1621-1638), which has many references to the visual arts of the time.

The lecture is part of the BA seminar "Sibylla Schwarz - und die Literatur des Barocks". Guests are very welcome!

Monday, 13 January 2025
Time: 10 a.m.
Room: A01 0-009

Witchcraft and city adventures: these are the themes of Ludwig Tieck's Novellenkranz. An almanac for the year 1832. The novella The Fair sends petty bourgeois from the provinces to the turbulent city, where their Biedermeier order is turned upside down. The historical novella The Witches' Sabbath allows a seemingly enlightened society to fall back into religious paranoia through intrigue. Both stories show Tieck to be a virtuoso writer of entertainment and a subtle critic of the times.

This critical edition presents the two novellas for the first time in their original publication context, revealing cultural and literary backgrounds with an afterword and passage commentary - and thus inviting readers to rediscover this almost forgotten Tieck.

To the publisher's site.