Marbach - Week 1

The image on everything in Marbach.

So I arrived in Marbach on Monday - after a relatively long and treacherous trip here, which I won't bore you with because honestly I can't go through it again.  Just take my word for it, don't fly into Toronto if you don't have to, and whatever you do be wary of flying on AirCanada if you aren't at one of their primary airports.

Of course because of the relatively long and treacherous trip, I ended up without my larger bag and having to take the train from Zurich yet again, though this time I'm pretty much an expert so...whatever.

Photo of my room

Marbach is a relatively small town about a 15 miles north of Stuttgart.  It is home to the German Literature Archive, the National Schiller Museum, the Museum of Modern Literature, and it's claim to fame is being the birthplace of Schiller - one of Germany's most prized authors from the 18th/19th centuries. On Monday I picked up the key to my room, found my room, and finally got a chance to check my email on the shared computers down in the first floor area.  Because of the flight delays I got in too late to re-register at the archive, and therefore couldn't get my access code for the internet.  No problem.  I had been to Marbach last year, so I was familiar with the area a bit, so after dropping of my bags in my room, I went to the bakery and grocery store quickly before they closed.

Tuesday I headed down to Tuebingen to visit with friends and to sit in on a course that one of my committee members is teaching.  I'll be headed down there every Tuesday to sit in on that class, which will give me a nice break from writing, at least once a week.  The class was good and I set up an appointment with the professor for next Tuesday.  I should be giving her a draft of my first chapter then, and I wanted to get a chance to talk to her about a conference paper that I'm working on, as well as the exchange student that she will be sending to our department next semester.

Wednesday spent almost the whole day at the archive.  I had ordered some books on Tuesday morning, when I went to register and picked up my internet access code, so they were waiting for me when I arrived.  In addition to the many collections they have (two of which I am interested in for my project) they have a great deal of secondary literature which is useful.  Some of it I have access to in NC, but other stuff I don't.  It's great to be at a place that is so well stocked with good research materials, and those materials that I can't get here, I can usually access online.

Right now I'm just writing.  My goal is to write at least 10 pages a week.  So far for this week I've written 6 pages, but then I wasn't really able to write on Monday or Tuesday and I haven't calculated my total for today.  If I can write a minimum of 10 pages a week, I will have written about 110 pages this summer.  It's not enough in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good dent.  If I can write more than that, it's great, but if not, I still feel like 110 pages is a fantastic foundation for finishing up next year.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to try to see about getting access to the two collections I'm interested in.  They are both full of what is known as Trivialliteratur or Unterhaltungsliteratur - basically popular fiction, but it's popular fiction from the 19th century, which is pretty hard to come by - particularly if it wasn't deemed important enough to keep around.  The one collection was a private library and the other is the contents of a lending library.  Both should be interesting and I'm hoping to find some works to round out my dissertation.  The goal - right now at least - is to write about one canonical work and one work of Trivialliteratur per chapter to show that the themes I'm looking at were present in both high and popular literature at the time.  We'll see if that happens, but it's a goal - plus, honestly most Trivialliteratur has just never been looked at, so I'm fairly certain it will be "original" research.  :)

As for Marbach, I have ventured around a bit thus far, in order to find the grocery store, bank, drug store, bakery, etc.  There's honestly not much here, but I actually feel like that's not a bad thing considering I have a dissertation to write.  But I'm going to make an effort to get hont a bit.  I've met a couple of other researchers  in the archive and I have a friend who works at the hospital in Landstuhl who I'm going to meet up with the next two weekends, so that will give me an opportunity to get a out and about.

The photos are pictures of my room and the view from my window.  I forgot to take my camera on my walk today, but since I'll be walking the stretch from the archive to the train station on a regular basis, I'm sure there will be opportunities in the future.  I'll update the album as I take photos.  More next week!