Contesting Europe: Comparative Perspectives on Early Modern Discourses on Europe Fifteentheighteenth Century

While the term ‘Europe’ was used sporadically in ancient and medieval times, it proliferated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and gained a prevalence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which it did not possess before. Although studies on the history of the idea of Europe abound, much of the vast body of early modern sources has still been neglected. Assuming that discourses tend to transcend linguistic, historical and generic boundaries, this book has gathered experts from various fields of study who examine vernacular and Latin negotiations of Europe from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century. This multi-angled approach serves to identify similarities and differences in the discourses on Europe within their different national and cultural communities.

Contributors are: Ovanes Akopyan, Volker Bauer, Piotr Chmiel, Nicolas Detering, Stefan Ehrenpreis, Niels Grüne, Peter Hanenberg, Ulrich Heinen, Ronny Kaiser, Niall Oddy, Katharina N. Piechocki, Dennis Pulina, Marion Romberg, Lucie Storchová, Isabella Walser-Bürgler, Michael Wintle, and Enrico Zucchi.

Nicolas Detering, Ass.-Prof. Dr. (* 1985), is assistant professor of German Literature at the University of Bern. He specialises in early modern literature and has published on German poetry and ideas of Europe in the seventeenth century.

Clementina Marsico, Dr. (* 1983), Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, is a researcher of Italian Humanism. She has published monographs, editions and commentaries, collected volumes and many articles on Renaissance Italy in general and Lorenzo Valla in particular.

Isabella Walser-Bürgler, Dr. (* 1988), Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, is key researcher at that institute. She has published various editions and articles on the Neo-Latin novel, the concept of Europe in Neo-Latin literature, and university orations.