Critics often discuss works of fiction by condensing them into a few resonant scenes. We are so attached to this strategy, in fact, that we sometimes apply it to history itself: New Historicists explicitly theorize the anecdote as an appropriately literary representation of the past. But why should minutes and hours be more literary than months…[Read more]

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Im Mittelpunkt stehen bislang die Frage nach dem Geist der Tiere, das Problem des Tier-Mensch-Unterschiedes und die Themenfelder der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet und ergänzt es dur…[Read more]

From 1852 the Hôtel Drouot was the space where the French auctioneers (Commissaires-Priseurs) – who held a stately sanctioned monopoly – organized their auctions. By processing data from the art auction catalogue repertory by Frits Lugt and the extended version Art Sales Catalogues Online, it is possible to map the networks of art marketing at…[Read more]

carnism & consumerism; eco-apocalypse; product placement; copyright

Throughout historic developments, the publicly ascertained and published price of an artwork repeatedly served as a reference point for art theoretical discussion. Particular importance was attached to the auction sale price, since this financial evaluation of art was of such a public nature. While there is a long history of these ideas about the…[Read more]

Die französische Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts über das Pariser Auktionshaus kreist um das Thema des Betrugs. In Büchern der Historiker und Kunstkritiker Jules Champfleury, Victor-Charles Préseau und Henri Rochefort werden Fälschungen und betrügerische Expertise in Zusammenhang gebracht und Experten als Störung für die Abläufe des Kunstmar…[Read more]

Panel Description: Rising with the popularity of printed music, binders’ volumes became a particularly important and popular cultural artifact around 1830, flourishing into the 1870s and beyond. Since the beginning, these volumes have presented a conundrum to librarians: how does one deal with a compilation of different musical works? How can c…[Read more]

Panel Description: Rising with the popularity of printed music, binders’ volumes became a particularly important and popular cultural artifact around 1830, flourishing into the 1870s and beyond. Since the beginning, these volumes have presented a conundrum to librarians: how does one deal with a compilation of different musical works? How can c…[Read more]

During the 1920s, the Philadelphia-based American Antivivisection Society turned to racialized metaphors in its circulating periodical, the Starry Cross, to excoriate the expanding practice of vaccination. Since vaccines were then made from animal-derived serums, the involvement of antivivisectionists in antivaccine arguments is not surprising.…[Read more]

This photoessay documents the 82nd Annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, which took place in Morgan City, Louisiana over Labor Day weekend in 2018. It contains photographs of the festival, including images of pageant queens, food vendors, and the Blessing of the Fleet. The essay documents the authors’ experience of the festival, and c…[Read more]

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. In ihrem Mittelpunkt standen bislang Fragen nach dem Geist der Tiere, der Tier-Mensch-Unterschied oder Probleme der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet mit dem Ziel einer strukturierten Un…[Read more]

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. In ihrem Mittelpunkt standen bislang Fragen nach dem Geist der Tiere, der Tier-Mensch-Unterschied oder Probleme der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte »Philosophie der Tierforschung« wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet mit dem Ziel einer strukturierten Un…[Read more]

Draft Version des Beitrags: In dem vorliegenden Artikel möchten wir der Frage nach den Möglichkeiten eines weiblichen bzw. feministischen Zugangs zu wissenschaftlicher Forschung in verschiedenen Hinsichten beleuchten. Wir werden uns dem Thema exemplarisch anhand des Forschungsfeldes der Primatologie zuwenden, wobei die Antwort auf die Frage, w…[Read more]

This paper assesses nine prominent readings of the imperial context/content of Verdi’s ‘Aida’ and offers a new perspective more adequate to basic tensions in the work. Readings have ranged from the literal (imperial Europe here stages an archaeological “ancient Egypt”) to the metaphorical (“Egypt” here is any repressive government). Or–somew…[Read more]

Commentators often express disappointment that the music for the main characters in _Aida_ is not more distinctive, i.e., does not make much use of the exotic styles that mark the work’s ceremonial scenes and ballets. It has also been argued that exotic style-elements here are mostly confined to female, hence powerless, characters. Such…[Read more]

Preprint to appear in a special issue of Cultural Analytics on “Identity.” The article explores the paradox that the representation of gender in fiction became more flexible while the sheer balance of attention between fictional men and women was growing more unequal. We measure the rigidity of gendered roles by asking how easy it is to infer…[Read more]

Her Father’s Name (1876) is one of Marryat’s most radical and intriguing novels, featuring Leona Lacoste, a cross-dressing heroine, and Lucilla Evans, a textbook hysteric who falls in love with her. For centuries, the diagnosis of ‘hysteria’ was conveniently applied to any woman who exhibited transgressive behaviour, whether it be through sexual…[Read more]

Whereas many women writers were reticent on the issue of property, or vehemently opposed to improving the position of wives, Florence Marryat used her public platform to campaign for change. As such, her work forms an important contribution to our understanding of women and property in the nineteenth century. In this paper I discuss the ways in…[Read more]

Syllabus for an undergraduate course on Erving Goffman.