Ambivalenzen von Beleuchtung und Dunkelheit in der Geschichte : eine Literaturanalyse

This article considers lighting and darkness from the perspective of cultural history. Focusing on the 19th and early 20th centuries, the perception and significance of the two phenomena in European and US-American society are analysed.
With reference to four conceptual pairings – progressive optimism vs. cultural pessimism, security vs. insecurity, control vs. resistance, and social differentiation vs. integration – it is shown that lighting and darkness evoked diverse associations and were thus construed variously within society. The individual chapters highlight which factors these associations depended on and outline the extent to which specific meanings of lighting and darkness resulted from them for particular social groups.