Gewalt und Heldentum

Heroic tales recount violence, which can be defined as a deliberate assault on the body of another against their will. The act of violence is a culmination of courage, determination, contempt for rules and the power to act; violence appears as a paradigmatic test of the individual. Violence forces those involved to position themselves in relation to it – perpetrators as well as victims, participants as well as bystanders, contemporaries as well as descendants. In this volume, three perspectives on the heroization, endurance and avoidance of violence structure different literary, historical, cultural and sociological approaches to identifying the relationship between the heroic and physical violence. An introductory essay identifies theoretical intersections between violence and heroism.

With contributions by
Ronald G. Asch, Cornelia Brink, Ulrich Bröckling, Olmo Gölz, Joachim Grage, Felix K. Maier, Vera Marstaller, Christoph Mauntel, Sotirios Mouzakis, Friederike Pannewick, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Sven Reichardt and Cornel Zwierlein.