German Literary Scholar, Interdisciplinary Researcher, & Humanities Advocate

My research brings together literary studies, the history of emotions, care ethics, animal studies, and related fields to rethink relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. I believe that expanding support for and access to the humanities in and beyond higher education is more urgent than ever in the age of AI.

Learn more about my work
A woman walking under a colonnade with columns on either side, wearing a black top, a colorful patterned skirt, black shoes, glasses, and a blue beaded necklace, smiling.

Academic Books

Book cover titled "Rethinking Feeling" by Holly A. Yanacek. It features a painting of a woman with red hair, dressed in black, lying on a green sofa with her head resting on a pillow and holding a book.

Rethinking Feeling: On the Renegotiation of Emotions in German Novels at the Fin de Siècle (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026)

A woman with a red headscarf holding a child stands in a doorway, while an elderly woman and two children stand outside. The elderly woman is reaching for the child holding a piece of bread, and the girl is looking at the elderly woman. There is a bush with pink flowers on the right side of the image.

Ambiguities of Care in Nineteenth-Century German Literature: Forming, Maintaining, and Disrupting Communities (Forthcoming with DeGruyter Brill in 2027) - Edited by John B. Lyon, Heather I. Sullivan & Holly A. Yanacek

Book cover titled "Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History," edited by Erika Quinn and Holly Yanack, published by De Gruyter, featuring illustrated robotic arm reaching out to a cat.

Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History (DeGruyter, 2021)

Cover page of a book titled "Keywords for Today" with a list of words related to social issues and the keywords project editors Colin MacCabe and Holly Yanack.

Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary (Oxford University Press, 2018)