Rainer Emig Book order

Eccentricity is a stereotype of Englishness. Yet despite its popularity, it has not merited much academic investigation. The present study offers a theoretically grounded overview of the emergence, structures and artistic productions resulting from eccentricity. It starts with its prehistory in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance before pinpointing its emergence in the seventeenth century. From then onwards it serves to negotiate cultural dissent and make it productive. What goes hand in hand with eccentricity is the individual, not as essentially given, but as relational. In the same way that eccentricity has textual and intertextual origins, eccentrics, despite their seeming singularity, form patterns. These can be used as cultural ‘fertiliser’ or as façades in the case of present-day British politicians. The study offers a re-reading of English Literature and Culture from the margins as well as theoretical outlooks in the directions of Gender and Postcolonial Studies.

The Conference of the German Association of University Teachers of English (Anglistentag) took place at Leibniz University Hanover from 21 to 24 September 2014. It was organised by Rainer Emig and Jana Gohrisch from the Department of English. Section I: Perspectives on the 18th Century Lieselotte Anderwald, Anita Auer, Birte Bös, Ulrich Busse, Claudia Claridge, Thomas Kohnen, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ilse Wischer, Göran Wolf Section II: Representations of Political Power in 18th-Century Literature and Culture Katrin Berndt, Kerstin Frank, Mascha Hansen, Oliver Lindner, Kai Merten, Barbara Schaff, Kirsten Sandrock, Martin Spies Section III: Enlightenment Fictions – Fictions of Enlightenment Jan Alber, Katharina Boehm, Wolfgang Funk, Jürgen Meyer, Susanne Peters, John Richetti, Michael Szczekalla, Sabine Volk-Birke, Section IV: Narrative, Identity Formation, and the Bildungsroman Nadine Böhm-Schnitker, Stella Butter, Georgia Christinidis, Anton Kirchhofer, Ursula Kluwick, Benjamin Kohlmann, Christian Schmitt-Kilb, Felix Sprang Section V: Poetry and Performance Patience Agbabi, Joana Brüning, Sebastian Domsch, Pascal Fischer, Ralf Haekel, Sarah Herbe, Julia Lajta-Novak, Katrin Röder, Andrea Sand, Merle Tönnies, Angelika Zirker

Treasure and treasure hunting are vast themes in literature and culture, yet have so far not received much sustained and coherent academic interest. The present collection of essays approaches treasure and treasure hunts in literature and culture from the Renaissance to the present. It asks questions about the legal, social, and cultural role of treasure, especially in connection with its links with gender and sexuality. The essays of the collection deal with Renaissance documents and their depiction of legal struggles over treasure, Romantic conceptions of the self as treasure, American nineteenth-century views of treasure, decadent treasure hunters in British and German literature, the link between imperial and domestic treasures in Victorian fiction, the emptying of treasure in Modernist fiction, intertextual and intermedial uses of treasure in opera and fiction, the treasuring of identity in the context of race in modern American writing, nature as treasure in ecocritical contemporary fiction, and AIDS medication as treasure in present-day South Africa.