Dr. Varol Kahveci is a literary scholar specializing in the 19th to 21st centuries, with a concentration on Occidentalism, Orientalism, and contemporary migration discourses at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and art. He received a Ph.D. in German and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. 

He is currently working on his first monograph, “(Un)homely Encounters: The Poetics and Politics of Heimat between 19th Century Orientalism and Contemporary Literatures of Migration,” which explores the German concept of Heimat (home/land), highlighting the indispensable role of cross-cultural engagements and the integral function of the so-called East in the construction of Heimat and German identities.

Alongside his current research, he has also begun work on a second book project, which traces the Turkish-German connection in the earlier 20th century. Approaching Turkish-German studies from the perspective of (Ottoman) Turkish thinkers and novelists, he probes the Turkish encounter with modernity and the concept of Occidentalism through the German-speaking world from the theoretical perspective offered by affect studies.  Examining how the epistemological construction of European modernity is critiqued in the writings and experiences of Ottoman/Turkish intellectuals, he asks how Germany and Turkey emerge in these readings. What implications do these interactions bear for rethinking literary modernity transnationally? How do they reframe reactionary narratives of Occidentalism? Other areas of interest include translation studies, trauma theory and Islam, archival theory, exile and diaspora studies, and transnational German cinema.

Varol’s research has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, the Heidelberg University Association (HAUS), the American Friends of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (AFM), the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG), and the Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies, among others. His article on the German-Jewish émigré Leo Spitzer received an honorable mention for the A. Owen Aldridge Prize from the American Comparative Literature Association (2024) and was published in the summer edition of Monatshefte (117.2). His article exploring Fatih Akın’s cinematography and the role of affect in contemporary Germany appeared in issue 99.2 of The German Quarterly. Another article based on his second book project on narratives of Occidentalism and German–Turkish relations in the early twentieth century was published in Middle Eastern Literatures.