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Guthke, Karl S.
About the author: Karl S. Guthke is the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture at Harvard University. He is a member of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, England; a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities Edinburgh; the Humanities Research Centre, Canberra; and the Wolfenbüttel Research Centre. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Institute of German Studies, London. His recent books include B. Traven: The Life Behind the Legends, The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds, from the Copernican Revolution to Science Fiction, The Gender of Death, and Der Blick in die Fremde.
2021 1-4955-0895-1Professor Karl Guthke describes his early life, emigrating to the United States in the 1950s to teach in major universities such as Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.
2021 1-4955-0905-2
2003 0-7734-6785-8
This book examines a number of facets of Western epitaph culture since antiquity, with particular emphasis on post-medieval developments in the major European countries as well as in North America. Various epitaphic “sub-cultures” are analyzed, among them the time-honored custom of composing one’s own tomb inscription as well as the ancient and modern convention of honoring animals with epitaphs. It also examines epitaph-collecting, epitaph “lies,” humorous epitaphs, and the change in social and religious attitudes toward suicides. The book concludes with a cultural and intellectual history of epitaphs. An epilogue addresses the question of the supposed disappearance of epitaph culture at the present time.