To mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of Martin Opitz on 23 December 1597, a colloquium took place in Gorlitz involving a list of speakers as international as it was interdisciplinary. In line with the occasion, the conference essayed as comprehensive an account as possible of Opitz' work and the impact it had in its day. The guiding principle underlying the papers presented here was a concept of 'life-world' as -perceived reality in which social groups and individuals not only act and behave but also themselves produce reality through their thinking and actions- (Rudolf Vierhaus). In the context of the early modern age, however, such construction of reality took place in text varieties of a highly circumscribed nature, structured by traditional and normative concepts. The textual and perceptive patterns themselves are not however geared to concepts of 'reality' or 'authenticity' such as those formulated later in history but to a form of reality represented by binding standards. The various contributions range from systematic studies to the history of genres and perennial themes, while others concentrate on individual works. Common to them all is a concern to cast new light on the keynote subject of the conference. As such they open up new avenues for exploring the life and work of this 'father of German literature'."

The present volume has been put together in honour of Sibylle von Steinsdorff and her long record of sterling research and editorial activity in connection with the German literature of Romanticism, Biedermeier and Vormarz. Accordingly, the articles contributed here by friends and colleagues concentrate on themes and/or works from the period 1800 to 1848. They range from interpretations of individual texts to comparative overviews, source research findings and reception studies."

Die im vorliegenden Band versammelten Studien stutzen sich auf ungewoehnlich umfangreiches empirisches Material, das im Rahmen eines kommunikationswissenschaftlich-medizinischen Modellprojekts an der Universitat Duisburg-Essen, Campus und Klinikum Essen, erhoben wurde. Am Beispiel von Videokonferenzen isolierter, krebskranker Kinder mit ihren Familien und Freunden entstand ein ubertragbares Modell fur "Telekommunikation von Kindern im Krankenhaus mit Eltern, Lehrern, Freunden (TKK-ELF)". Seine Entwicklung und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Evaluation werden hier ebenso dokumentiert wie die daran anschliessenden interaktions- und gesprachsanalytischen Arbeiten der Essener Forschungsgruppe zur Theorie und zur methodischen Erforschung technisch vermittelter (multimedialer) interpersonaler Kommunikation und ihrer oft multiplen Multimodalitat.