The purpose of the essays collected in this volume is to advance the discussion about "life knowledge" (Lebenswissen) and to point the way toward new horizons for current and future thinking and action in literary and cultural studies. This broad research field encompasses a wide range of elements: European, non-European, philological, and philosophical approaches; perspectives native to media history, narrative theory, and the aesthetics of literature; as well as transcultural and transdisciplinary methods. Clearly, "life knowledge" is a field of research whose forms and norms of knowledge remain to be more precisely elucidated.