Description
Book SynopsisThe first scholarly English translations of thirteen vital texts that elucidate the central role mountains have played across nearly five centuries of Germanophone cultural history. Mountains have occupied a central place in German, Swiss, and Austrian intellectual culture for centuries. This volume offers the first scholarly English translations of thirteen key texts from the Germanophone tradition of engagement with mountains. The selected texts span over 450 years, ranging from the early modern period to the postmodern era, and encompass several discursive modes of the mountain experience including geographical descriptions, philosophical meditations, aesthetic deliberations, and autobiographical climbing narratives. Well-known figures covered in this translational sourcebook include Conrad Gessner, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, G.W.F. Hegel, Alexander von Humboldt, Georg Simmel, Leni Riefenstahl, and Reinhold Messner. Each text is accompanied by a critical introduction that places the translated text within a broader cultural context. The dual translational-interpretational approach offered in this volume is intended to stimulate new international and interdisciplinary dialogue on the cultural history of mountains and mountaineering. Sean Ireton (University of Missouri) and Caroline Schaumann (Emory University) are also the editors of Heights of Reflection: Mountains in the German Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Twenty-First Century (2012).
Trade Review[Mountains and the German Mind] succeed[s] in providing the reader valuable new insight into the natural and cultural history of mountains. * ECOZON@ *
Mountains and the German Mind will be of interest to students of the American landscape because it discusses global issues relating to mountaineering. [It] seeks to address why mountains are exceptional landscapes which deserve greater attention and care, to the detriment of . . . ordinary, and possibly more vital, landscapes. -- Maggie Eirenschmalz * NEVADA HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY *
Table of ContentsThe Changing Mountain Discourses - a Germanphone Perspective - Sean Ireton and Caroline Schaumann Conrad Gessner, "Letter to Jacob Vogel on the Admiration of Mountains" (1541) and "Description of Mount Fractus, Commonly Called Mount Pilate" (1555) - Dan Hooley Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, The Natural History of Switzerland (1716) - Excerpts - Jennifer Jenkins Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, The Natural History of Switzerland (1716) - Excerpts - Christoph Weber Sophie von la Roche, Diary of a Journey Through Switzerland (1787) - Excerpts - Martina Kopf G.W.F. Hegel, Travel Diary Through the Bernese Alps (1796) - Sean Franzel Alexander von Humboldt, Failed Ascents of Antisana and Chimborazo - Two Excerpts from Travel Diaries (1802) - Caroline Schaumann Hermann von Barth, From the Northern Limestone Alps (1874) - Excerpts - Sean Ireton Georg Simmel, "Alpine Journeys" (1895) and "On the Aesthetics of the Alps" (1911) - Jens Klenner Eduard Pichl, "Autobiographical Sketch" (1914) and "The Alpine Association and German Purity" (1923) - Wilfried Wilms Leni Riefenstahl, Struggle in Snow and Ice (1933) - Excerpts - Seth Peabody Arnold Fanck, He Directed Glaciers, Storms and Avalanches: A Film Pioneer Recounts (1973) - Excerpts - Kamaal Haque Hans Ertl, My Wild Thirties (1982), Chapter 7: "The Film Gets Colorized - But the Himalaya Still Looks Bleak" - Harald Höbusch Max Peintner, "The Dam" (1981) - Paul Buchholz Reinhold Messner, Westwall: The Abyss Principle (2009) - Excerpts - Gundolf Graml Works Cited Index
