By exploring the concept of the tender gaze in German film, theater, and literature, this volume's contributors illustrate how perspective-taking in works of art fosters empathy and prosocial behaviors.

Like a dangerous virus, a man invades the life of advertising copywriter Anja Berger. He talks about scent marketing and claims that he has created a scent composition to seduce her and spend beautiful nights with her. Will he succeed? Kai Mertens, the junior boss of the advertising agency for which Anja works, thinks about the future on a trip abroad, about whether he should continue to advertise short-lived cheap products that fill garbage dumps and ruthlessly exploit our nature. He invites his friend, the art historian and painter Claus Hoffmann, who no longer finds his life worth living after the death of his childhood sweetheart, on his trip. Can nature fill the emptiness inside him with its beauty and give his life a new meaning?

The Aesthetic Mind breaks new ground in bringing together empirical sciences and philosophy to enhance our understanding of art and the aesthetic. An eminent international team of experts explores the roles of emotion, imagination, empathy, and beauty in this realm of human experience, discussing visual and literary art, music, and dance.

A young Venetian man and woman face hardship and high seas adventure across the Mediterranean in this prize-winning novel set during the Renaissance. Venice of the late sixteenth century is an unforgiving city. The Doge rules with an iron fist and the Holy Office of Inquisition harbors suspicions about everything and everyone. It is a place where even the walls have eyes. So when a recently married stonemason by the name of Michele is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he flees for his life aboard a galley—leaving behind his young wife, Bianca. Determined to clear his name and return to his love, Michele embarks on extraordinary adventures as the ship stops at every port and island on its way across the sea. Meanwhile, Bianca struggles to survive alone in Venice, where she faces all the terrors and mysteries that the labyrinthine city holds in its blind alleys and narrow passageways. To survive, they must each find every ounce of cunning, courage, and fortitude within themselves.

Japan has had three Catholic prime ministers, and its current empress was raised and educated in the faith. How did a non-Christian nation come to foster more Catholic leaders than the United States, particularly when Protestantism is said to define Christianity in Japan and Catholicism is believed to be but a fleeting element of Japan’s so-called Christian century? Far from being a relic of the past – something brought to Japan by sixteenth-century missionaries such as Francis Xavier and then forgotten – Catholicism offered, and continues to provide, an authentic way for Japanese believers to shape their cultural identities. This volume documents the appeal of Catholicism, not only among farmers and fishers but also among scientists, diplomats, novelists, and members of the imperial household who have found in Catholicism an alternative way to keep “tradition” and negotiate modernity since the late nineteenth century.