Cultural Studies

Paul von Otting is the first to present a comprehensive monograph on the cultural history of the (late) ancient death penalty, critically revising the prevailing conception of a regime of violence during this period. In addition, he determines the place of capital punishment within the changing society and culture of the late antique world, offering new insights into the nature of pre-modern criminal justice.

Punishment is seen as being a matter of course. As the saying goes, whoever will not hear must feel. However, the contradiction embodied here is rarely voiced. After all, reacting to experienced suffering with punitive pain shows that the law is still based on a myth today: it believes it can bring vulnerable subjects to their senses through suffering and in this way do justice to the existential plight of the victims. A law that recognizes this contradiction must find other answers.

That the period between 1380 and 1520 did not see a late medieval setting of the sun on, but rather the dawn of a powerful new era of dynamic religion is the main thesis of Berndt Hamm's new volume presented here. Driven by a fearful anticipation of the afterlife and fuelled by a desire for grace and salvation, religion was propelled towards piety, theology, and pastoral care, which in turn gave rise to a surge in sacred artistic expression.

In the era of pandemics, hyper-digitalization, mass migration, and precarious ecology, the idea of what it means to live as a bodily creature is more important than ever. The authors of this volume aim to 'think' the Unthinkable Body both together with, and beyond, embodied reason.