Abstract
The field of materiality and literature can be differenciated in two directions. Materiality of literature refers to book design, printing formats and typography. Materialty in literature, however, analyzes the way, ‘things that speak’ are integrated in fictional and non-fictional texts. The introduction reflects the international critical discussion of the field in the last years and situates the contributions of this number in it.
Highlights
There are not many areas in literary studies that have proved to be as fruitful and connectable to other fields of knowledge as the area of materiality in literature in recent years, especially in the German- and English-speaking countries
The notion could originally be found in museology and cultural anthropology (“material culture”) and in philosophy (Heidegger’s “the thing”; the “thingness of objects”) and from there it found its way into social theory
The situation is more difficult for the field of materiality and literature
Summary
There are not many areas in literary studies that have proved to be as fruitful and connectable to other fields of knowledge as the area of materiality in literature in recent years, especially in the German- and English-speaking countries. Categories of materiality have long played an important role. Contracts in the Italian Renaissance determine the subject and the type of representation, and the materials to be used for a work of art; the use of gold and ultramarine is often paid for separately (Baxandall 1972). The determination of the materials typically used in a work of art at the time of its creation is a central. For all examples of material culture, the discussion is on ‘things that talk’. They may be different—“some of the things in question are individuals, other are genera, some are in between” They have to ‘speak’ in a semiotic sense, meaning that they have to be given meaning in a specific context. At least since the attempt to summarize a global history of mankind “in 100 objects” for the BBC with enormous success, i.e. in a radio program which means, in a medium where definitively nothing can be seen (MacGregor 2010 and numerous translations), the object-focused approach to cultural history has had a broad international reception and even found sequels for a national memoria (e.g. Lucena Giraldo 2015)
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