Trying to Find a Rhythm

Summer is here, but I am having trouble getting into a good work rhythm. I have a number of things to do this summer, in particular some essays to write about Jeremias Gotthelf that are supposed to appear in a new Gotthelf Handbook that is under preparation. But so far I am not making much progress.

I blame it on the college, though. Not only am I teaching a pair of online courses, but all faculty have been required (in part) and encouraged (the other part) to "attend" a number of Zoom workshops this week, devoted to planning for the fall semester, when we must be prepared to teach both face-to-face on campus and also online. These have been taking up quite a bit of time.

Plus, I still can't get into my office except once a week to return some books and pick up others to replace them.

And then there are the interferences that I can't blame on the college. Yesterday I had to write a book review, which was my own fault, since I'd offered to do it. (And the book turned out to be really hard--lots of obscure literary theory, all in German.) And we have finally gotten a bit of nice weather, so yesterday and today I was able to get out in the yard to do some lawn-mowing. Whacked a few weeds, too, while I was at it.

But I will still have to find more time for Gotthelf soon.

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A Warning Against Drink

I have gotten several things read over the last few days, but I keep forgetting to post any of it. Some more Gotthelf, but also a couple of other things. I'll try to break them up in order to get a few more posts out of them! Last Friday I finished another Gotthelf novella, Wie fünf Mädchen im Branntwein jämmerlich umkommen . That title does not translate very well into English, or at least I don't think so. Something like, How Five Young Women Perish Miserably Due to Brandy (or literally "in brandy"). It is an early work of Gotthelf's and a piece of social criticism. When Gotthelf was writing (1838), the canton of Bern had recently liberalized its system for granting licenses to operate a pub. At the same time, new methods of producing cheap brandy from different sources, including even the ubiquitous potato, were developed. As a consequence, inns and pubs sprang up throughout the countryside, creating a new temptation for poor...

Dursli

Back to Gotthelf! I have already mentioned that I re-read Gotthelf's novella about the five young women who were ruined by drink. Last week I also re-read the second of his two early novellas tackling the problem of rural alcoholism, Dursli, der Brannteweinsäufer, oder Das heilige Weihnachtsabend ( Dursli the Brandy Drinker, or The Holy Christmas Eve ). This story also warns against the pubs springing up all over the Emmentaler countryside and their consequences for the rural poor. But it is also--even more than I had remembered, in fact--set in the broader political context of the times. Gotthelf begins the novella, in fact, before he ever even introduces the main characters, with about a 10-page discourse on the problematic reception in Switzerland of the ideas of the French Revolution. Its call for equality and freedom, he says, is naturally interpreted by the poorer classes not in terms of true Christian equality and freedom, but rather as a ...

"Plague Time" Essay Contest

If you are a major or minor in History, Political Science, Augmented History, Humanities, or German Studies, you are eligible to enter a brand-new essay contest being sponsored by the Department of History and Political Science. Details available here . And if you aren't a major or minor in one of those areas... it is not too late to become one now !

Plague Time

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