This volume comprises interdisciplinary papers on different subjects in the field of the humanities, which were read at a workshop of the same name at the University of Trier in 2008. For the first time, the papers focus on the study of the construction, manifestation and dynamics of formulaic expressions in texts and images, demonstrate new methods of their analysis and cover a historical range from antiquity to the present. Above all, the volume provides the basis for a new multidisciplinary field of research on formulaic style in verbal and visual media.

In this volume, whose authors explore conceptions of space from the 18th to the 20th century, focusing on the role of the body and the senses as well as the importance of the mediality of space, putative new forms of energy and medial trance. In the interface of physiology and physics, electricity and ecstasy, modern spaces of transference can develop.

This collection of essays covers all periods of cartography’s history from antiquity to the present time, all kinds of maps from star maps and sea charts to land maps and street plans and all administrative, political, ideological, military and economic uses of maps. At the same time, proceeding from recent methodological changes in the field of historical-cultural studies, it focuses on the spatial knowledge generated by maps and the pictorial-diagrammatic means of this knowledge production.

The volume goes back to a transdicsiplinary conference held in December 2010 at the University of Trier. It contains articles dedicated to tree key concepts that are central to the 'spatial turn'-discussion in the framework of the historically oriented cultural studies. These key concepts are "places", "orders", and "oscillations". All three key concepts stand both for existing and imaginary/factitive entities and focus the discussion on their dynamic features as well as on the continuity and discontinuity of their development, on their interdependence and on the impact they have on each other. The volume covers a wide time period from the Middle Ages until modern times and includes diverse case studies of a manifold range of sources stretching from the architectural structure of a Gothic cathedral to printed (visual and verbal) sources of different genres. In this way, the volume contributes significantly to the cultural historical discussion of the concept "space" within the European knowledge archive.

In this dissertation the author asks if the people in the Middle Ages already had an awareness of fictionality in today’s sense. She investigates this question through a comparison between Middle High German Arthurian romances and modern Arthurian films/television series and also by introducing a semio-pragmatical approach.

The doctoral thesis deals with knowledge transmission processes in historical perspective as a contribution to the research of premodern knowledge cultures. The object of research, the “Feldbuch der Wundarznei” (1517) is suitable for a socio-functional analysis not only due to its form, its long-term reception until the 17th century, its thematic range and media hybridity, but also because of the many surviving copies. In comparison to other medical prints of the time it is possible to show how medical information was organized, effectively presented and legitimized. Furthermore analysis of the literary traces found in several copies of the “Feldbuch” gives an insight in what way the recipients read the book and how they used it.

Die zehn innerhalb des Bandes versammelten Beiträge beschäftigen sich mit der in der Forschung lange vernachlässigten städtischen Ausprägung von Außenpolitik während des Spätmittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Sowohl die auswärtige Politik der Städte als auch die Kompetenzen und Handlungsspielräume der städtischen Gesandten wurden dabei insbesondere innerhalb der traditionsreichen Diplomatiegeschichte maßlos unterschätzt, wofür etwa die bekannte und lange Zeit als Standardwerk geltende Studie Viktor Menzels aus dem Jahre 1892 ein besonders augenfälliges Beispiel bietet. Erst in jüngerer Zeit setzt ein langsamer Wandel in der Wahrnehmung und Bewertung des städtischen Gesandtschaftswesens ein, der etwa durch eine stärkere Fokussierung auf die nachweisbaren Maximen städtischer Diplomatie den Notwendigkeiten der nach außen gerichteten Politik urbaner Zentren Rechnung trägt. Hier setzen auch die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes an, der sich in drei Teile gliedert. Insgesamt dokumentiert die Vielfalt der in den Beiträgen aufgezeigten Befunde die Notwendigkeit einer weiteren multiperspektivischen Erforschung des bis dahin wenig untersuchten Themas der städtischen Außenpolitik.

Since the Early Modern Period, traveling becomes a central strategy enhancing knowledge. At the same time, travel seems to deliver a gateway for the incalculable and unfathomable. Contributions to this addition seek to explore how this type of non-knowledge appears in travelogues and travel fiction in literature, film, and art. Those investigations can show the aesthetic and epistemic dimensions of non-knowledge. As travel is conceptualized both as a medium and a poetical figure reflecting upon knowledge processes this publication will enrich the discussions on theory of knowledge as well as on travel writing.