The eleven chapters in this international volume draw on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to focus our attention on medieval and early modern things (ca. 700-1600). The range of things includes actual objects (the Altenburg Crucifixion, a copy of Hieronymus Brunschwig's Liber de arte distillandi, a pilgrim's letter), imagined objects (a prayed cloak for the Virgin Mary), and narrative objects in texts (the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the Ordene de Chevalerie, Hartmann von Aue's Erec, Heinrich of Neustadt's Apollonius of Tyre, Luis de Camoes's Os Lusiadas, and the vita of Saint Guthlac). Each in its own way, the papers consider how things do what they do in texts and art, often foregrounding the intersection between the material and the immaterial by exploring such questions as how things act, how they express power, and how texts and images represent them. Medieval and early modern things are repeatedly shown to be more than symbolic or passive, they are agentive and determinative in both their intra- and extradiegetic worlds. The things that are addressed in this volume are varied and are embedded, or entangled, in different contexts and societies, and yet they share a concerted engagement in human life.

Anlass und Gegenstand des Bandes ist der Versuch einer vorlaufigen Bilanz: Seit etwa Mitte der 1980er Jahre ist die Forschung zum Liebes- und Abenteuerroman weit voran geschritten. Bislang wurde die Arbeit angrenzender Disziplinen jedoch nur vereinzelt zur Kenntnis genommen. Hier werden erstmals Fragestellungen, methodische Ansatze und Probleme der Forschung auf internationaler und interdisziplinarer Basis zusammen gefuhrt und die Breite und Kontinuitat der europaischen Uberlieferung zum Gegenstand gemacht. Zudem wird versucht, Perspektiven kunftiger Forschung zu bestimmen. Der Band vermittelt einen reprasentativen Einblick in eine uberwaltigend umfang- und aspektreiche Gattungsgeschichte. Wahrend mit 'Hybriditat ein mittlerweile etablierter Begriff fur die genretypische Mischung aus Gattungs- und Erzahlmustern im Titel genannt ist, verweist das Konzept des asthetischen 'Spiels' auf die kreativen Potentiale der Gattung, die es vielfach erst noch zu erschliessen gilt."

The series "QUELLEN UND FORSCHUNGEN ZUR LITERATUR- UND KULTURGESCHICHTE" (Sources and Research in the History of Literature and Culture), with a rich tradition stretching back to 1874, is an established feature among the renowned publications for German Literary Studies. Edited by Ernst Osterkamp and Werner Roecke at the Humboldt University of Berlin, the series presents examples of high-quality scholarship examining literary texts in conjunction with historical cultural phenomena, particularly with the other arts. There is an explicit demand for literary studies with a transdisciplinary approach. German literature from the Middle Ages to the present day forms the main focus of the series. As the historical cultural thrust of the series includes aspects of intercultural experience and national perceptions of the other, Quellen und Forschungen is also open to occasional comparative studies. The publications of the series include monographs, doctoral and professorial theses and thematically focused volumes of collected papers. Works presented for acceptance in the series are required to display scholarly relevance and excellence in method and presentation.

Jutta Emes untersucht die durch das Internet veranderte Wettbewerbssituation in der Musikindustrie und verdeutlicht, wie innovative Unternehmer erfolgreiche Strategien fur Online-Musikangebote entwickeln und umsetzen konnen. Sie ermittelt Musiknachfrageverhalten und Zahlungsbereitschaft fur einzelne Marktsegmente und zeigt Erfolgspotentiale fur die Branche auf.

More than any other secular story of the Middle Ages, the tale of Tristan and Isolde fascinated its audience. Adaptations in poetry, prose, and drama were widespread in western European vernacular languages. Visual portrayals of the story appear not only in manuscripts and printed books but in individual pictures and pictorial narratives, and on an amazing array of objects including stained glass, wall paintings, tiles, tapestries, ivory boxes, combs, mirrors, shoes, and misericords. The pan-European and cross-media nature of the surviving medieval evidence is not adequately reflected in current Tristan scholarship, which largely follows disciplinary and linguistic lines. The contributors to Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde seek to address this problem by opening a cross-disciplinary dialogue and by proposing a new set of intellectual coordinates-the concepts of materiality and visuality-without losing sight of the historical specificity or the aesthetic character of individual works of art and literature. Their theoretical paradigm allows them to survey the richness of the surviving evidence from a variety of disciplinary approaches, while offering new perspectives on the nature of representation in medieval culture. Enriched by numerous illustrations, this volume is an important examination of the story of Tristan and Isolde in the European context of its visual and textual transmission.

More than any other secular story of the Middle Ages, the tale of Tristan and Isolde fascinated its audience. Adaptations in poetry, prose, and drama were widespread in western European vernacular languages. Visual portrayals of the story appear not only in manuscripts and printed books but in individual pictures and pictorial narratives, and on an amazing array of objects including stained glass, wall paintings, tiles, tapestries, ivory boxes, combs, mirrors, shoes, and misericords.The pan-European and cross-media nature of the surviving medieval evidence is not adequately reflected in current Tristan scholarship, which largely follows disciplinary and linguistic lines. The contributors to "Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde" seek to address this problem by opening a cross-disciplinary dialogue and by proposing a new set of intellectual coordinates--the concepts of materiality and visuality--without losing sight of the historical specificity or the aesthetic character of individual works of art and literature. Their theoretical paradigm allows them to survey the richness of the surviving evidence from a variety of disciplinary approaches, while offering new perspectives on the nature of representation in medieval culture. Enriched by numerous illustrations, this volume is an important examination of the story of Tristan and Isolde in the European context of its visual and textual transmission. "Comprehensive and cutting edge, "Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and Isolde "defines the moment in the history of Tristan scholarship. The essays, gathered from both sides of the Atlantic, enrich and expand the key concepts of materiality and visuality to account for the proliferation of the Tristan story in an astonishing range of media. The collection gives scholars in several disciplines the tools to explore the productive connections between the verbal and the visual in medieval culture." --Sarah Westphal-Wihl, Washington University in St. Louis