Martyrdom in Literature

Short Description

This book aims to achieve a deeper understanding of the very human phenomenon of martyrdom by analysing in detail its highly varied re-enactments in European and Middle Eastern literatures. Despite its divergent historical, religious, philosophical or political circumstances, there does seem to be a certain inner logic, a metaphorical structure or symbolical subtext underpinning and thus unifying these heterogeneous literary manifestations of the idea of martyrdom.
In this volume, eighteen researchers from the fields of literary, historical and religious studies reflect on the way concepts of martyrdom are represented, staged, praised or critically deconstructed in different world literatures.

Series Description

Literatures in Context is a peer-reviewed book series devoted to Near Eastern and North African literatures. The editors want the title of the series to be understood programmatically. They presuppose a concept of world literature that includes Near Eastern and North African literatures. What is more, they assume that literatures are in many ways marked by intertextuality, that they constitute readings of extremely diverse earlier texts, and that they are posited within a field of tensions, much broader than their respective national language. For the earlier eras of Near Eastern and North African literatures, this field of tensions geographically covers the regions of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. In modern times, it has become a space of interaction that has long since included “global” Western literatures (and realities). This does not imply that the modern Near Eastern and North African literatures have severed themselves from their predecessors. Instead it is precisely the tension between different sets of references in modern Near Eastern and North African literatures, or their “local historical context”, which is a great part of their attraction, that remains a crucial field of research for the modern scholar.

Katalog als PDF