Georgia Kacandes

Georgia Kacandes is an American literary scholar and professor specializing in German studies, comparative literature, and memory studies. She is the Ira Allen Eastman Professor of Humanities and a Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College. Kacandes's influential research focuses on narrative theory, trauma theory, Holocaust studies, and the intersection of family history with collective memory.

Early life and education

Georgia Kacandes was born into a family of Greek-American heritage, a background that would later inform her scholarly interest in diaspora and transgenerational trauma. She completed her undergraduate studies at Bryn Mawr College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. She then pursued her doctoral studies at Harvard University, where she was influenced by prominent scholars in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and the intellectual environment of Harvard Yard. Her doctoral dissertation, which examined narrative techniques in modern German literature, laid the groundwork for her future contributions to literary theory.

Academic career

After completing her Ph.D., Kacandes began her academic career with a faculty appointment at Dartmouth College. She has held several significant administrative roles within the institution, including serving as Chair of the Department of German Studies and acting as the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth. Her leadership extended to the Humanities Institute at Dartmouth, where she helped foster interdisciplinary dialogue. Kacandes has also been a visiting professor or fellow at institutions such as the University of Konstanz and the Freie Universität Berlin, contributing to international scholarly networks in European studies.

Research and scholarship

Kacandes's scholarly work is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, bridging literary analysis, cultural studies, and psychoanalytic theory. A central pillar of her research is the study of how traumatic historical events, particularly the Second World War and the Holocaust, are narrated and remembered across generations. She has made significant contributions to the field of testimony studies, analyzing forms of witnessing in both autobiographical writing and fiction. Her work often explores the mechanics of oral history and the ethical dimensions of representing familial and collective trauma in works by authors such as W.G. Sebald and Ruth Klüger.

Major works and publications

Kacandes is the author of several acclaimed scholarly books. Her early work, Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion, published by the University of Nebraska Press, analyzes the incorporation of conversational patterns into modern European literature. Her most widely recognized book is Daddy's War: Greek American Stories, a hybrid work of autobiography, ethnography, and scholarly analysis that investigates her father's silenced experiences during the Axis occupation of Greece and the Greek Civil War. This book, which received the Hellenic Heritage Achievement Award, is published by the University of Michigan Press. She has also co-edited volumes such as A User's Guide to German Cultural Studies and has published numerous articles in journals like The German Quarterly and Poetics Today.

Awards and recognition

Throughout her career, Georgia Kacandes has received numerous awards for her teaching, scholarship, and service. She is a recipient of the John M. Manley Huntington Award for outstanding teaching at Dartmouth College. Her book Daddy's War earned her the prestigious Hellenic Heritage Achievement Award from the Hellenic Heritage Foundation. She has also been awarded fellowships and grants from organizations like the American Council of Learned Societies and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which supported her research stays in Germany. Her election to various committees within the Modern Language Association underscores her standing as a leader in the field of Germanic languages and literatures.

Category:American literary scholars Category:German studies scholars Category:Dartmouth College faculty Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Bryn Mawr College alumni