Resisting Pluralization and Globalization in German Culture, 1490–1540

Book excerpt: A critical reading of both literary and non-literary German texts published between 1490 and 1540 exposes a populist backlash against perceived social and political disruptions, the dramatic expansion of spatial and epistemological horizons, and the growth of global trade networks. These texts opposed the twin phenomena of pluralization and secularization, which promoted a Humanist tolerance for ambiguity, boosted globalization and spatial expansion around 1500, and promoted new ways of imagining the world. Part I considers threats to the political order and the protestations against them, above all a vigorous defense of the common good. Part II traces the intellectual and epistemological upheaval triggered by the spatial discoveries and the new methods of visual and verbal representation of space. Part III examines the nationalistic backlash triggered by the rising global trade and related abusive trading practices and by perceived undue foreign influences. It is the basic premise of this book that the texts examined here protested the observed disruptions of the status quo and sought to reestablish a stable imperial order in the face of political and social upheaval and of the felt cultural decline of the German nation.