Online Databases to Early Modern German Language Texts

By: Dana Rehn
resourcesLeave a Comment on Online Databases to Early Modern German Language Texts

By no means the definitive guide, but a start in a great range of online sources by German libraries that are mostly open access. Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, Munich Bibliotheksverbund Bayern British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts  Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek e-rara: the platform for digitized rare books from Swiss institutions Forschungsbibliothek Gotha Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel Incunabula…

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Rise of Nationalism and the Othering of Perceived Outsiders in Sixteenth-Century Germany

By: Dana Rehn
German History, werewolvesLeave a Comment on Rise of Nationalism and the Othering of Perceived Outsiders in Sixteenth-Century Germany

Germany was increasingly referred to in nationalistic terms during the Renaissance by using phrases such as ‘we Germans’, ‘all of Germany’, and ‘common German fatherland’, even though German nationalism remained largely cultural rather than political until the nineteenth century.[i] The growing nationalistic sentiment during early modern Germany created a romanticised vision of German heritage and…

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Monstrous Women: Hair, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Modern German Prints

By: Dana Rehn
German History, werewolvesLeave a Comment on Monstrous Women: Hair, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Modern German Prints

The concept of shape-shifting and representations of human-animal hybrids in both literary sources and the visual arts captured the early modern European imagination. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the prevalence of pictorial prints featuring these creatures dated in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, produced in the regions of Germany, around the time of…

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Germanic Warrior Wolf Tribes: Werewolves, Shamanism, and Outlaws

By: Dana Rehn
German History, werewolvesLeave a Comment on Germanic Warrior Wolf Tribes: Werewolves, Shamanism, and Outlaws

Old Norse literature is filled with stories of shape-shifting transformation of humans and gods alike, reflecting oral traditions of several hundred years.[i] These transformations were either voluntary, hereditary, or the result of a curse.[ii] They include The tale of Ulf (‘Wolf’), which is described in Egil’s Saga, written in Iceland in 1000 A.D., in which…

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