University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Imagining other worlds: Defining the German Volksbuch through narratives of mobility

Sternhagen Schwenk, Andrew Charles

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130119

Description

Title
Imagining other worlds: Defining the German Volksbuch through narratives of mobility
Author(s)
Sternhagen Schwenk, Andrew Charles
Issue Date
2025-05-29
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Wade, Mara
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Wade, Mara
Committee Member(s)
  • Hilger, Stephanie
  • Keller, Marcus
  • Stoppino, Eleonora
  • Horsfall, Walker
Department of Study
Germanic Languages & Lit
Discipline
German
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • German literature
  • Renaissance
  • Reformation
  • Protestant Reformation
  • Age of Discovery
  • Global Reformations
  • Narratives of Mobility
  • Travel
  • Melusine
  • Thüring von Ringoltingen
  • Dil Ulenspiegel
  • Till Eulenspiegel
  • Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel
  • Fortunatus
  • Historia von D. Johann Fausten
  • Faustus
  • Faust
  • gender
  • Mercantile Romance
Abstract
Since the debates over the genre during the 1970s and 80s, the early modern prose Volksbuch has been rescued from the status of "sunken" literature and has become the site of intense scholarly inquiry. While early research concentrated on establishing the contexts of the creation of individual Volksbücher and defending them as a worthy subject of study, today scholars view the genre as an important source for investigating contemporary attitudes. Despite the development of the Volksbuch development coinciding with increasing European exploration and mobility, travel has rarely been thematized in studies of the genre. Instead, previous scholarship has often characterized these works as insular and folksy, though their foreign roots and international content has long been recognized. My dissertation disrupts previous interpretations by studying these tales as outward-facing prose novels that explore early modern responses to religious upheaval and global exchange. My research explores how narratives of mobility shed new light on how contemporary social changes and relations are conceptualized in the German Volksbuch. To accomplish this, I analyze four popular works of fiction published between 1450-1600 that expressly thematize travel: Thüring von Ringoltingen's adaptation of the French Melusine (1457), Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel (1515), Fortunatus (1509), and Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587). I examine these texts using various theoretical approaches from gender studies to race and ethnic studies as well as the latest work on the interplay between the age of exploration and the “long” Reformation in Western Christianity. By analyzing the Volksbuch through the lens of fictionalized travel, my dissertation positions the genre as an outward-facing form that engages with global discoveries, new market economies, and profound transformations of church and society. Exploring and analyzing the ecosystems of fictionalized travel repositions these works in the literary canon.
Graduation Semester
2025-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130119
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2025 Andrew Charles Sternhagen Schwenk

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