In opposition to an essentialist conceptualization, the social construct of the human body in literature can be analyzed and described by means of effective methodologies that are based on Discourse Theory, Theory of Cultural Transmission and Ecology, System Theory, and Media Theory. In this perspective, the body is perceived as a complex arrangement of substantiation, substitution, and omission depending on demands, expectations, and prohibitions of the dominant discourse network. The term Body-Dialectics stands for the attempt to decipher - and for a moment freeze - the web of such discursive arrangements that constitute the fictitious notion of the body in the framework of a specific historic environment, here in the Age of Goethe.

In opposition to an essentialist conceptualization, the social construct of the human body in literature can be analyzed and described by means of effective methodologies that are based on Discourse Theory, Theory of Cultural Transmission and Ecology, System Theory, and Media Theory. In this perspective, the body is perceived as a complex arrangement of substantiation, substitution, and omission depending on demands, expectations, and prohibitions of the dominant discourse network. The term Body-Dialectics stands for the attempt to decipher – and for a moment freeze – the web of such discursive arrangements that constitute the fictitious notion of the body in the framework of a specific historic environment, here in the Age of Goethe.

Throughout his literary work Goethe portrays characters who defy and reject 18th and 19th century ideals of aristocratic and civil families, notions of heritage, assumptions about biological connections, expectations about heterosexuality, and legal mandates concerning marriage. The questions Goethe's plays and novels pose are often modern and challenging: Do social conventions, family expectations, and legal mandates matter? Can two men or two women pair together and be parents? How many partners or parents should there be? Two? One? A group? Can parents love children not biologically related to them? Do biological parents always love their children? What is the nature of adoptive parents, children, and families? Ultimately, what is the fundamental essence of love and family? Gustafson demonstrates that Goethe's conception of the elective affinities is certainly not limited to heterosexual spouses or occasionally to men desiring men. A close analysis of Goethe's explication of affinities throughout his literary production reveals his rejection of loveless relationships (for example, arranged marriages) and his acceptance and promotion of all relationships formed through spontaneous affinities and love (including heterosexual, same-sex, nonexclusive, group, parental, and adoptive).

Lucia Ruprecht's study is the first monograph in English to analyse the relationship between nineteenth-century German literature and theatrical dance. Combining cultural history with close readings of major texts by Heinrich von Kleist, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Heinrich Heine, the author brings to light little-known German resources on dance to address the theoretical implications of examining the interdiscursive and intermedial relations between the three authors' literary works, aesthetic reflections on dance, and dance of the period. In doing so, she not only shows how dancing and writing relate to one another but reveals the characteristics that make each mode of expression distinct unto itself. Readings engage with literary modes of understanding physical movement that are neglected under the regime of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory, and of classical ballet, setting the human, frail and expressive body against the smoothly idealised neoclassicist ideal. Particularly important is the way juxtaposing texts and performance practice allows for the emergence of meta-discourses about trauma and repetition and their impact on aesthetics and formulations of the self and the human body. Related to this is the author's concept of performative exercises or dances of the self which constitute a decisive force within the formation of subjectivity that is enacted in the literary texts. Joining performance studies with psychoanalytical theory, this book opens up new pathways for understanding Western theatrical dance's theoretical, historical and literary continuum.

"Literature written by women in German during the period long known patriarchally as the Age of Goethe was largely lumped in with other unserious or artistically unworthy works under the category Trivialliteratur, literally 'trivial literature.' Using insights from Gender Studies yet acknowledging the need for a literary canon, Great Books by German Women offers a critical interpretation of six canon-worthy German novels written by women in the period, for which it coins the term 'Age of Emotion.' The novels are chosen because they depict women's ordinary yet interesting lives and, equally, because each displays formal strengths that yield prose particularly able to express emotion. The first, Sophie von La Roche's Die Geschichte des Frèauleins von Sternheim (The History of Lady von Sternheim), draws on the tradition of the epistolary novel while also finding new ways to depict empathetic emotions. The second, Friederike Unger's Julchen Grèunthal, brings to the Frauenroman or women's novel the use of irony to portray a heroine's emotions during her coming of age. The next novels add lyricism to their prose to capture sensual emotions: Sophie Mereau's Blèutenalter der Empfindung (The Blossoming of Feeling) imagines women's affinity for the philosophical sublime, while Caroline Wolzogen depicts female desire in her Agnes von Lilien. The fifth novel, Die Honigmonathe (The Honeymoon), by Karoline Fischer, explores the agony that extreme emotions cause--not only for women but also for men. The last novel, Caroline Pichler's Frauenwèurde (The Dignity of Women) expands the focus from a young heroine to multiple mature characters while maintaining the centrality of women's talents and emotions. Finally, this study accords honorable mention to some other women's novels before concluding that the influence of these six works was in no way trivial, either in portraying women's lives and emotions or in the history of German literature"--

Moral Victories is the first book-length treatment of the ethical dimensions of victory in war.

Poets, painters, philosophers, and scientists alike debated new ways of thinking about visual culture in the “long eighteenth century”. The essays in The Enlightened Eye: Goethe and Visual Culture demonstrate the extent to which Goethe advanced this discourse in virtually all disciplines. The concept of visuality becomes a constitutive moment in a productive relationship between the verbal and visual arts with far-reaching implications for the formation of bourgeois identity, pedagogy, and culture. From a variety of theoretical perspectives, the contributors to this volume examine the interconnections between aesthetic and scientific fields of inquiry involved in Goethe’s visual identity. By locating Goethe’s position in the examination of visual culture, both established and emerging scholars analyze the degree to which visual aesthetics determined the cultural production of both the German-speaking world and the broader European context. The contributions analyze the production, presentation, and consumption of visual culture defined broadly as painting, sculpture, theater, and scientific practice. The Enlightened Eye promises to invest new energy and insight into the discussion among literary scholars, art historians, and cultural theorists about many aspects of visual culture in the Age of Goethe.