As a young man who grew up in the countryside of Oklahoma, I had never really had the luxury to travel before my college years. By during my undergraduate education, I took seriously the idea of original research topics and good writing skills, pointers which always came to help me when filling out applications for travel aid. In just a matter of five years, during my early twenties I had the honor to visit Turkey, Greece and Germany through educational summer programs. Two summers ago, I had traveled to study in Münster, Germany, for three months on a fellowship but had run short on funds. Even as a student employed part-time at the university, the thought of travel costs worried me. But a Fulbright would ease my financial burden and permit me to conduct the research I needed in Germany.
Even so, between Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 I was not beginning to put the cart before the horse. Although I applied for the Fulbright grant, I still planned to enroll the next year at the University of Missouri. Jenny, my wife, planned to teach at a local high school. We sincerely hoped to go to Germany, but we still had a Plan B. This is the best way to live your life. Needless to say, it was welcome news when in April 2019 - less than a year ago - I checked my email to discover that the Fulbright commission had selected my application as one winner out of more than a thousand submissions.
A great deal has happened since. Of course, Jenny and I both have spent many days in archives and libraries as I seek to piece together the history of Germany's early sci-fi and fantasy movies like Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Hans Werkmeister's Algol (1920).
