To put it simply, I'm a word nerd. I like puns, paronomasia, and poetry—close readings, out of which come far-out ideas. Taking a step a bit farther back, I've been concentrating on nineteenth-century German literature, translation and critical theory. Why these? Well, here's an answer from my statement of purpose:
Das Immerwährendschöpferische. Das Endlichunendliche. Das Neuentstehende. In poetry, and in the German language in particular, there is a certain freedom, perhaps even propensity, to put opposing words together, even to invent new words. So it should come as no surprise that Hölderlin looked back to classical poesie and created his own pseudo-neologisms. However, words are never just words. With such etymological invention comes inventive aesthetics as well. These aesthetics that arise out of poetry and paradox drive my studies.
I wrote an MA thesis at UIC on Wilhelm Waiblinger's epigrams. Before that, I did my BA at Northwestern in German-Critical Thought. Now I'm working on Jena Romanticism reception and reaction at Berkeley.