The present volume introduces new considerations on the topic of "World Literature." The essays revolve around the question of what, specifically in today's rapidly globalizing world, may be the productive implications of the concept of World Literature, which was first developed in the 18th century and then elaborated on by Goethe.

This book explores one of the central questions that has haunted husbands and wives and lovers over the millennia of history: What kind of afterlife might they expect for their love once one or both of them have died? Focusing on the evolution of ideas about posthumous love within medieval and early modern Europe, the book includes many religions and cultures in order to understand how expectations about the afterlife differed across traditions.

Cynicism seems to be a viral word. Far from losing its function due to excessive use, it appears to be applied to almost anything deemed problematic morally, societally, politically, culturally. This study aims at rendering scholarly expedient a term apparently innocent of any precise meaning, by providing precise descriptions of the cynical statement and the cynical stance in Machiavelli, Gracian, Diderot and Nietzsche.

Die Studie beschaftigt sich vergleichend mit den Horazkommentaren Cristoforo Landinos und Denis Lambins, die sich in der Renaissance auf ganz unterschiedliche Weise ihrem kommentierten Autor Horaz nahern. Dabei werden sowohl der Kommentar und die Horazrezeption der Renaissance als auch zwei auergewohnliche Gelehrte des funfzehnten und sechzehnten Jahrhunderts in den Blick genommen.