Research on medieval and early modern travel literature has made great progress, which now allows us to take the next step and to analyze the correlations between the individual and space throughout time, which contributed essentially to identity formation in many different settings. The contributors to this volume engage with a variety of pre-modern texts, images, and other documents related to travel and the individual's self-orientation in foreign lands and make an effort to determine the concept of identity within a spatial framework often determined by the meeting of various cultures. Moreover, objects, images and words can also travel and connect people from different worlds through books. The volume thus brings together new scholarship focused on the interrelationship of travel, space, time, and individuality, which also includes, of course, women's movement through the larger world, whether in concrete terms or through proxy travel via readings. Travel here is also examined with respect to craftsmen's activities at various sites, artists' employment for many different projects all over Europe and elsewhere, and in terms of metaphysical experiences (catabasis).
Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, USA
In diesem Band kommen tschechische Reiseberichte genauso zu Wort wie böhmische Unterhaltungsliteratur, in der die Protagonisten viel unterwegs sind. Hinzu kommen Untersuchungen, die sich auf solche geistigen Reisen beziehen, die ein Individuum stellvertretend etwa für Nonnen (stabilitas loci) oder Kaufleute durchführt, die wegen ihrer Tätigkeit unabkömmlich sind. Dazu finden sich hier Aufsätze, in denen solchen Fragen nachgegangen wird, welche Ernähung Reisende erhielten, ob der ostasiatische Raum überhaupt Europa wahrnahm und ob von dort buddhistisches Gedankengut dorthin gelangte.
literarurkritik.de, 08.08.2019
