Grenzgänger, the point of commerce and comparison between Anglophone and German discourse, is also a point of comparison between literature and philosophy. Perhaps the most perfect example of
grenzgänger is to be found in Laurence Sterns’s The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy one of the most-evaluated novels in English literature. It serves as a veritable treasure trove of humor,
based slyly on grenzgänger. Here, nine essayists take on both Shandy and grenzgänger. Topics include style and syntax as catalysts of Sterne’s humor, the ruins of melancholy, Sterne and Hume
from personal identity to character, Sterne’s humor in the works of Richter and Hippel, a comparison of Hegel and Sterne, Shandean Taylor Coleridge, Marx’s attempts to recreate Shandean humor,
Melville’s textual pirating, and Shandean humor in Alfred Jarry’s Gestes et opinions du Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation
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