Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H. C. Erik Midelfort. Edited by Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer and Robin Barnes. Farnham, Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing. 2009. Pp. xxv + 356. Cloth $124.95. ISBN 978-0-7546-6568-7.

摘要

Ideas and Cultural Margins is a fabulous collection of essays assembled to honornone of the most influential scholars of early modern Germany in NorthnAmerica, Erik Midelfort. The contributors to this anthology includenMidelfort’s former students, a successful cohort of scholars in their own right,nand a group of his closest colleagues in the United States and Europe. Thenproblem with many Festschrifte is the scattered nature of their content.nReviewers often probe in vain to find a common theme or motif that unifiesnsuch volumes. Apart from chronology and geography, this collection, in con-ntrast, highlights two major themes that are also important hallmarks ofnMidelfort’s own scholarly work. Nearly all of the essays are interdisciplinarynin nature, and most owe a methodological debt to the social history of ideas.nCollectively, they explore the intriguing connections between science, law,nsexuality, literacy, and religion. Secondly, these essays share a predilection fornsubject matter that has been traditionally seen as “marginal, weird, or properlynforgotten” (p. xx). In this collection we encounter levitating priests, polyga-nmous pastors, enterprising pornographers, and suicidal murderers. Thenauthors of these contributions share the conviction that it is often throughnthe study of what we see today as strange and bizarre that we frequently makenthe most important discoveries.