This thesis explores the early modern coffeehouse and its bourgeois clientele in Europe in the form of a case study on Dutch coffeehouses in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. The chosen...Show moreThis thesis explores the early modern coffeehouse and its bourgeois clientele in Europe in the form of a case study on Dutch coffeehouses in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. The chosen inquiry seeks to elucidate how a new social category – the bourgeoisie – developed over altered drinking habits, materials and the corresponding aesthetical codes within the social institution of the coffeehouse. Rather newly, the coffeehouse as an institution of publicness and consumption in the Enlightenment is researched from the angle of visual and material history. On the whole, this thesis contributes to the cultural historical field of early modern consumption. One result is that the consumer goods coffee and porcelain created a balance between rational forms of conduct and individual attitudes within the public sphere of coffeehouses. A multifarious historical approach by the means of visual and textual sources towards the early modern consumption of both coffee and porcelain considers the correspondent material qualities and suggests that porcelain from China has been remarkably suitable for the coffee ritual which entered Europe from the Middle and Near East. The thereby evolved tastes were groundbreaking for the rise of the bourgeoisie. This is demonstrated by the analysis of the design and arrangement of the vessels required for the individual and collective display of the tastes around coffee-drinking, on the basis of inventories and images. From a postcolonial perspective, the present thesis outlines which associations around the historical concept of luxury accompanied the adoption of Asian coffee and porcelain coffee ware into European consumption habits, while the world of coffee has always been represented as an oriental theme in travelogues, recipe books, medicinal treatises and fashion plates. Furthermore, the thesis describes how these ideas and values associated with coffee-drinking enabled the consolidation of the social construct of a specific regional group of the urban middleclass bourgeoisie, while locating the coffeehouse in the unique historical environment of early modern Amsterdam.Show less
This thesis will explore the research question “How does the unveiling of the Muslim women represent a power relationship between the Muslim Orient and the European Occident?” by looking into two...Show moreThis thesis will explore the research question “How does the unveiling of the Muslim women represent a power relationship between the Muslim Orient and the European Occident?” by looking into two case studies that represent the European desire to ‘unveil’ the Muslim women with their ‘fetishization’ and ‘voyeuristic gaze’, connecting to the concept of orientalism. It will analyze the case studies from the discipline of postcolonial feminism, developing from the mainstream postcolonial theory that aims to subvert the authority of the colonizer by highlighting the voice of colonized subjects.Show less
Feirefiz von Anjou zählt zu den kuriosesten Figuren der mittelalterlichen Artusliteratur. Als orientalisch-okzidentalische Hybridfigur in Wolframs von Eschenbach Versepos "Parzival" wird er zum...Show moreFeirefiz von Anjou zählt zu den kuriosesten Figuren der mittelalterlichen Artusliteratur. Als orientalisch-okzidentalische Hybridfigur in Wolframs von Eschenbach Versepos "Parzival" wird er zum Sybol einer Weltverwandtschaft, die seine Darstellung und seine unentbehrliche Rolle im Narrativ unterstreichen.Show less
