So what is it you do again?

Random Human: "So what is it you do again? Just keep learning German?"
Me: "No, I already speak German. It's more like a study and analysis of LITERATUREPOLITICSPHILOSOPHYHISTORYCULTURETHEORY from the German-speaking peoples of this lovely world."
Random Human: "....so what is it you do again?"
Me: "I read a million books and write things. Oh and I make German puns like no one's business."

Grad school is a strange place (potentially located in the fourth dimension) and I've come to realize that since I didn't actually know what Germanic Studies would entail when I applied to programs (I know, I'm the worst. Insert public derision by other academics here), most normal people probably don't know what the field "Germanic Studies" entails.

Surprise: it's lots of things.

The most general of categories are either literature/culture and linguistics within a language/area field.

And I'm definitely not a linguistics guru.

Which means that by default I'm trying to become a literature person even though I had little exposure to German literature before August 2017 because for some reason I thought I could keep doing more historical based studies of Germanic peoples but I entered a much larger, humanities-centered field.
As it turns out though, Germanic Studies has a pretty flexible definition so I'm still figuring out where my research interests fit in and meanwhile devouring all the German books I can.
Not literally.
Just literary. 

So what am I actually doing right now?

Reading German literature, plays, philosophy, and theory and analyzing, discussing, and interpreting what we read regarding beauty, gender, politics, history, culture, language, rhetoric, authorial intention, and anything and everything else. 

Oh and learning Yiddish still and brushing up on French reading and let's not forget German film and cultural identification and oh yeah I already said anything and everything else so just assume I know everything.

Correction: assume I know nothing. But am trying to desperately to not know nothing. #lifegoals

I also work in a humanities lab where we research how people relate to and retell stories regarding factors such as affects (emotions), empathy, and side-taking. Basically lots of abstract things which are still pretty unfamiliar to me because let's not forget that I am a historian at heart and by training.  #lovemydeadpeople



BUT
the moral to all this background story is that last week I read a piece of literature from 1797 by Ludwig Tieck and it blew my mind because it was THE WEIRDEST STORY I've potentially ever read.

So of course I loved it.

And I need to tell you (dearest internet reader) about this story that will both change your life and make you question what you know about the academic world.

Spoiler alert if you were ever planning on reading "Der Blonde Eckbert."

Okay go.


Once upon a time there was a guy named Eckbert. Blonde Eckbert to be exact.
Because he has blonde hair, duh.
So Eckbert (with blonde hair) has a wife named Bertha (we are not sure if she too is blonde or not) and sadly they don't have kids but they really enjoy their solitude so it's probably fine and they live alone in the mountains together. Fortunately for them, they have one friend named Walther who visits them in their isolation and even though Walther is a pretty somber guy, they think he's the bee knees.

So one night when Walther's been chilling at their house and the weather is bad, Eckbert says, "Hey, why don't you stay the night Walther? And hey Bertha, while Walther's here, why don't you tell him about your super strange childhood?" #desparateforconversation

Since Bertha is equally desperate for conversation, she says totes for sure and launches into her disturbing childhood.

Which starts with her growing up in an abusive household and running away when she's eight and after contemplating suicide, deciding not to. She then meets a crazy old woods-woman. Woods-woman takes child-Bertha to her cottage and raises her there, teaching her how to read and do life things and oh yeah, that's not forget that she has a magical bird that lays gems instead of regular eggs and a yappy dog whose name Bertha can't remember. When Bertha's a teenager, she decides to steal the bird and its gems but leave the yappy dog whose name she still can't remember. Unfortunately, the bird drives her mad with its songs of loneliness so she kills it but hey, at least she has those gems.
She goes back to the city where she was born and meets Eckbert and they get married and are pretty wealthy because of those awesome gems so go team Bertha.

And that brings us back to the present. For some reason Walther doesn't think this was sketchy at all and he even says it was a great story and he can imagine the yappy dog Stromian really well so that's good.

Which leads Bertha to the largest freak out session of her life because how the heck did Walther know the yappy dog's name was Stromian when she herself had forgotten it?

Bertha gets pretty sick from all this freaking out and she and Eckbert start to get real paranoid that Walther is going to come and steal their wealth now that he knows about the gems. Bertha gets sicker and sicker and Eckbert decides to go hunting one day as he too frets over Walther. And whom should he see in the woods while hunting but Walther! And what does he do when they make eye contact?
Shoots him with a crossbow of course.

And he's feeling pretty fly about having killed his best friend except then when he comes home, his wife has died because of her illness and in case you forgot, those were Eckbert's only two friends.

So he's super bummed and sad but then good news! He makes a new friend named Hugo and likes him so much that he shares his wife's crazy childhood with him too (might as well post it all over social media why don't you) but then Hugo starts looking like Walther (who is dead in case you forgot the crossbow scene) and so Eckbert gets all paranoid again and runs like a madman into the woods.

And who does he find there but the crazy old lady who raised his wife.

She laughs at him and tells him that she was both Walther and Hugo so sucks to suck.
But what sucks even more?


Eckbert's wife Bertha was also his sister.



AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Ahhh. 

Ah.

Because she left home so young so he never knew and then he just collapses into the mess of a person because #accidentalincest and the story ends.



I know, it's insane. Wonderfully weird and insane.
Like a good horror movie.

Anyways, I just thought the world should know about this story, which admittedly is probably the most interesting/strange thing I feel like I've read thus far in the literature world (though a few Brecht plays came close). Apparently there is an English opera of this story as well from the 90s, so feel free to check that out.

Come ask me what I think this story tells us about the world sometime.
And don't forget to not marry your sister.