Populäre Bildkulturen der Vormoderne

In the last few years, manifestations of popularity have increasingly become a focus of cultural studies debate. Taking as its starting point the actuality and ubiquity of popular culture – commonly regarded and conceived of as a hallmark of modernity – this edited volume is the first to fundamentally ask whether the category "popular" can be applied to the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. The interdisciplinary chapters in this volume draw on contemporary theories of popular culture to shed light on both the overarching theoretical and methodological level as well as processes of popularization in the form of case studies. They pay special attention to visual artifacts and phenomena, discussing their distribution, reproduction, variation, and serialization, while also outlining aspects of pop culture’s politicization, its normative impact, and its anarchic potential. Resulting from a conference that was held at the University of Koblenz-Landau, the volume contains chapters by, among others, Andreas Beck, Julian Jachmann, Doris Lehmann, Michaela Ott, Anna Pawlak, Stephan Packard, Johannes Tripps, Susanne Wittekind, and Lars Zieke.