Library News for German Studies

New eResources for Medieval Studies and Religious Studies

Lexikon des Mittelalters The Lexikon des Mittelalters (LexMA) is an indispensable tool for medievalists across all disciplines. It deals with all branches of Medieval Studies and covers the period from 300 to 1500 AD/CE for the whole of Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa. The ancient roots of Western Culture, as well as neighbouring cultures, such as the Byzantine, the Arabic and the Jewish, occupy a prominent position in the encyclopaedia.

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The Monumenta Germaniae Historica was founded in 1819 by the Gesellschaft für Deutschlands ältere Geschichtskunde. It is without doubt one of the most prestigious editorial undertakings for the critical publication of medieval historical texts. The MGH has established for all Western scholarship a standard for critical editions. The search-software offers a wide range of search possibilities.

International Encyclopedia for the Middle Ages The purpose of IEMA is to offer newly-written, commissioned, articles, fully peer-reviewed that supplement Lexikon des Mittelalters and offer supplementary notes to the original LexMA articles. The chronological range of IEMA is 300–1500 CE, and it covers all of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Bibliographie de Civilisation Medievale The Bibliographie de civilisation médiévale (BCM) has been established by the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (Université de Poitiers) and aims to provide a comprehensive, current bibliography of monographs.

International Directory of Medievalists The International Directory of Medievalists Online is the continuation of the printed editions and contains 15,000 names and addresses of specialists from over 70 different countries with for the majority their fields of study.

Papal Letters Online (LITPA) The database Ut per litteras apostolicas represents an electronic version of the renowned Registres et lettres des Papes du XIIIe siècle (32 vols.; Rome, 1883- ) and the Registres et lettres des Papes du XIVe siècle (48 vols.; Rome, 1899- ). This publication provides access to valuable sources not only for church historians but those interested in politics, socio-economic affairs, warfare, cultural history, even the environment.

In Principio The database contains over 1,000,000 incipits covering Latin literature from the Pre-classical Age to the Renaissance. It is aimed at all those scholars and libraries interested in the writers, texts and manuscripts of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is an inevitable tool when studying or publishing a particular text or to make an inventory of manuscripts.

Vetus Latina Database (VLD) The huge panoply of Latin biblical texts which were in existence and use from the second century AD/CE until the time when the Vulgate became predominant are known under the common rubric of the Vetus Latina, or the Old Latin, Bible. The term Vetus Latina refers to all those biblical texts translated into Latin which are not found in the Vulgate. This database contains every citation, listed by book, chapter and verse of the Bible. The citations (over 300,000) can be searched individually or as a whole, following the biblical structure. The result of a search is an image of the card file available in the Vetus Latina Institute.

Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Geographie Ecclesiastiques (DHGE) This online encyclopaedia is an unparalleled source of information for anyone interested in the history of the Church. It comprises a vast amount of information: 30 volumes, 70,000 entries and sub-entries, over 50,000 columns by specialists, aimed at an academic readership. Every year, about 1,000 articles are updated to further enrich the database.

Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique Bibliographie (RHE) The RHE bibliography covers the literature that deals with the different aspects of the Church's history. However, the bibliography does not limit itself to Church history stricto sensu: every theme touching Church history is covered (political history, social and economic history, archaeology, history of art, music, architecture, relations with Islam and Judaism, etc.) which makes the RHE a first line tool for the different disciplines.

Europa Sacra Online Europa Sacra offers complete coverage of Church prelates, information on all 1300 medieval bishoprics, archdioceses and patriarchates and prosopographical information on 18,507 bishops, archbishops and patriarchs.

Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature The Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature Online is a full-text database of the corpus of Latin literature produced in Celtic-speaking Europe from the period 400-1200 A.D. It contains more than 450 Latin works spanning the fields of theology, liturgy, computistics, grammar, hagiography, poetry and historiography, and including legal texts, charters, inscriptions, etc.

Aristoteles Latinus Database The ALD is a full-text database of the corpus of medieval translations of the works of Aristotle. The Latin versions of these texts constituted the main tools for the study of science and philosophy in the Middle Ages.

Library of Latin Texts B Library of Latin Texts (former abbreviation: CLCLT) is the world’s leading database for Latin texts. It contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It covers all the works from the classical period, the most important patristic works, a very extensive corpus of Medieval Latin literature as well as works of recentior latinitas.

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Database of Latin Dictionaries--new eReference

Database of Latin Dictionaries The database grows gradually and comprises three kinds of dictionaries: dictionaries to assist translation from Latin into modern languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), dictionaries providing semantic and etymological explanations in Latin of Latin words and historical Latin dictionaries. One dictionary included is the Kirchenlateinisches Wörterbuch (2011).

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Einzig und allein : ledige Figuren in der Belletristik / Andrea Bugge--new eBOOK

Einzig und allein  : ledige Figuren in der Belletristik / Andrea Bugge. Frankfurt : PL Academic Research, 2012.

Diese Arbeit vergleicht die literarischen Darstellungen des ledigen Menschen und die Thematik der Ehelosigkeit in ausgewählten Romanen und Erzählungen aus dem 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart. Unter Einbezug textsoziologischer, intertextueller, sozialgeschichtlicher, soziokultureller und genderspezifischer Zusammenhänge weist die Autorin den Einfluss des frühromantischen Liebesideals auf die Gestaltung lediger Figuren der folgenden literarischen Strömungen nach. Dabei wird erkennbar, wie prägnant der Typus des «Hagestolzes», der «alten Jungfer» und des postmodernen Singles die Frage nach dem Wesen des Menschen und seinen ästhetischen Ausdrucksformen spiegelt, trotz und gerade wegen der ihm zu allen Zeiten zugeschriebenen scheinbaren sozialen Mangelhaftigkeit.

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Forum Modernes Theater--NEW eJOURNAL

WU has access to the eJournal Forum Modernes Theater (0930-5874).

Forum Modernes Theater is the is the only peer-reviewed journal for theatre studies in the German-speaking countries. It is published twice a year. The journal examines cultural, aesthetic and historical manifestations of theatre and embraces all aspects of academic discussion – both subject-specific and interdisciplinary – including approaches taken from cultural and media studies. Dance theatre and musical theatre are considered just as readily as performance and theatre history. The journal’s declared objective is to cross the boundaries into neighbouring disciplines such as literature, art and music studies.

We also have earlier issues in print.

 For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

SS Thinking and the Holocaust / Andre Mineau (2012)--NEW eBOOK

SS thinking and the Holocaust  / André Mineau. Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi, 2012.

DESCRIPTION: SS ideology was the expression of an apparently philosophical self-containing system of thought, articulated around a systematic body of knowledge claiming to integrate humanity inside a global vision of Being. Using ontology and anthropology as foundations, SS thinking developed essentially in the field of ethics. It portrayed itself as a global approach to society and civilization, based on eugenics and ethnic cleansing. It accomplished the fusion of the modern biological paradigm with the cultural shock brought about by World War I and promoted total war for the sake of total health. And since institutional philosophy largely ignores SS theory and praxis, Holocaust memorial institutions may represent an alternative for the development of understanding and reflection.Within the context of Nazism, SS thinking did much to work out the theory for which the Holocaust would be the ultimate accomplishment. It intended to provide the Holocaust with legitimacy, from the viewpoints of ontology, anthropology, politics, and ethics, whence the importance of studying the theoretical framework that gave sense to the most terrible form of SS praxis.

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Digital resources from Center for Research Libraries now in our catalog

More than 16,000 digitized resources from the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) were recently added to the WU Libraries catalog. Available to WU users on or off campus, the materials are newly accessible to the university community as a result of WU Libraries' membership in CRL.

Users may browse all the records in the catalog and search to discover more than 3,000 international dissertations, online versions from the SAMP (South Asia Microform Project), and much more. Specific examples include the CRL Nobel Laureates dissertation collection, Essays on African culture, Deutsche Kolonien : die Forderung des Dritten Reiches, Traditional Indian culture & other essays, and Indo-English literature: a collection of critical essays. More will be added periodically.

There are +2,500 resources in German, +1,900 in French, and additional ones in other languages.

The ecological voice in recent German-Swiss prose / Andrew Liston (2011)--NEW eBOOK

The ecological voice in recent German-Swiss prose [electronic resource] / Andrew Liston. Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, c2011. (Cultural identity studies ; v. 24.)

"This study focuses on the five most prominent Swiss writers of the last thirty-five years whose work features ecological crisis. It is an analysis of five narratologically divergent styles, ranging from the eco-parables of Franz Hohler to the hermeneutically defiant work of Gertrud Leutenegger. Between these poles, the author also explores works by Walther Kauer, Max Frisch and Beat Sterchi. Previously unpublished material from interviews with three of the authors is included"--p. 4 of cover.

 For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Jews in Business and Their Representation in German Literature, 1827-1934 / John Ward (2010)--NEW eBOOK

Jews in business and their representation in German literature, 1827-1934  / John Ward. New York : Peter Lang, c2010. (Britische und Irische Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur ; no. 53.)

CONTENTS: Introduction -- The Hoffaktor : a necessary evil? -- Citizens and conmen -- Heimatkunst and Hauptstadt : the portrayal of urban and rural Jewish business people in the literature of the late nineteenth century -- The challenge of the Jewish commercial spirit in the early writing of Heinrich Mann -- Responses to anti-Semitism by Jewish and non-Jewish authors -- Conclusion.

 For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Kafka-Lektüren / Gerhard Neumann (2012)--NEW eBOOK

Kafka-Lektüren [electronic resource] / Gerhard Neumann. Berlin : De Gruyter, 2012.

Summary:  The present book documents the findings that have emerged over Neumann's more than forty years of engagement with Kafka's works. By exploring both thematic and editorial relationships, this volume provides two forms of access to one of the most important bodies of work in all of world literature. The author, a co-editor of critical editions of Kafka's works, is able to speak from the perspectives of both a hermeneutist and editor. The present study presents literary scholars with the results of a concentrated reading of Kafka’s work, organized according to key thematic concepts: life, writing, anthropology, art, and mediality.

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)

Klassik Online (Internationale Bibliographie zur deutschen Klassik 1750-1850)--ONLINE

Klassik Online which is based on the Internationale Bibliographie zur deutschen Klassik 1750-1850 (International Bibliography of the German Classics 1750-1850) is one of the most comprehensive and reliable specialist bibliographies on German literature from the Enlightenment to the Romantic periods. It notes about 5,000 publications annually, in German and in other languages: monographs, contributions in collections and journals, university publications, commemorative volumes and sound recordings. Citations for authors of the German Classical Age for both primary and secondary literature are included.

Klassik Online offers both German and English interfaces. Besides title and subject searching, you can browse listings of primary and secondary literature for authors of this period through the Classification Search.

This bibliography is also available in print.

For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)