Series

Dying, death and grief have to be regarded as fundamental aspects of cultural coexistence because humans cannot avoid dealing with them when they live with others. A diminishing circle of friends and family, the pain of loss, the transformation of a living being into a dead body, the symbols and rituals of saying farewell to the deceased, plus the contribution of medical, religious and other forms of expertise along with many other aspects reveal, on the one hand, the potential of the utter devastation a person’s death can trigger. On the other, these forms of expression and modes of behaviour also underline that dying and death are not purely natural occurrences. They transpire amid societal mechanisms which reflect a large and, at times, contradictory variety of reflective processes in addressing the finite nature of life. Death is a human’s greatest certainty in life. In this respect, the series of publications Thanatological Studies provides a forum for both theoretical and empirical works which address the social, normative, aesthetic, spiritual, bodily, psychological and other facets of death and dying, and by extension grief and remembrance, from the perspectives of different academic disciplines.

This series is intended as a forum for a form of literary studies whose cultural studies expansion has been consolidated since the ›turns‹ in recent decades. The monographs and anthologies it publishes address the ›textures‹ which literature (and culture in general) is composed of: the literal materials and the media and cultural contexts that are inserted and interwoven into texts. These works and analyses are characterised by their openness towards incisive theoretical discussions in literary, media and cultural studies as well as their demands for innovative approaches.

The volumes in the series intro: Literaturwissenschaf provide a sound, compact and understandable introduction to both fundamental and current topics relating to a form of literary studies whose cultural studies expansion is based, for example, on the ‘turns’ of recent decades, such as the cultural turn, spatial turn, social turn, etc. The books will appeal to students of all branches of philology who would like to obtain an overview of their respective subject area, and the structured discussions, concise summaries, bibliographical references as well as questions and suggestions for further research in the volumes will facilitate students’ introduction to the subject matter.