Poetiken des Blätterns

Anyone who reads, browses. Since the establishment of the codex as the standard form of book in late antiquity, browsing as a cultural technique has been reflected and practiced in religious, academic, social and literary contexts.This study examines aesthetic representations and choreographies of browsing, from the literature of the early modern, baroque and romantic periods to recent artists' books and current literature. The focus also falls on books outside the literary canon and those intended for browsing rather than reading. The study of different traditions and strategies of browsing also offers interesting insights into the function and significance of books as repositories of knowledge, the processes of generating knowledge, the changing conceptions of the book as a data-carrier and a medium for the distribution of literary works, the role of the book in literature and, not least, the early and modern interaction with literary works as a haptic experience.