This book discusses the visual and verbal city sketches which proliferated during the 'journalistic revolution' of the 1830s and 1840s. It shows how sketches transformed models of visual and printed media and of life science into a unique kind of sociology, presenting a self-critique of the middle class on the brink of industrial modernity.

Autorentext
MARTINA LAUSTER is Professor of German at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research focuses on comparative literature from the Nineteenth century and she has wide-ranging experience in leading collaborative research projects, such as the internet edition of Karl Gutzkow's works.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements and Note on Translations Introduction: Nineteenth-Century Sketches and the Problem of Walter Benjamin's Legacy The Dynamic Present: Sketches and Print Media The Mobile Observer: Sketches and Optical Media Physiology, Zoology and the Constitution of Social Types The Devil in Europe: Sketches and the Moralist Tradition Turning Insides Out: An Anatomy of Observation The Panoramic Order: Piecing Together the City The Encyclopaedic Order: Reviewing the Nation and the Century Conclusion: Sketches as a Grammar of Modernity Bibliography Index