Petra S. McGillen

I work on the material history of creativity in German literature and culture, ca. 1750 to 1900. In particular, I explore the impact of different forms and media of notation—from doodles to writers’ notebooks, from lists to databases—on creative writing processes and forms of knowledge organization. I am currently completing a book about Theodor Fontane's notebooks and the making of literature in the industrial age of print. My other research and teaching interests include book history, the history of journalism, popular culture, and literary realism.