Lorie A. Vanchena, Ph.D.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences - School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures - Department of Germanic Languages & LiteraturesRoom 2078
Room 313
Office Hours:
W, 12:30-2:30 and by appointment 519 Watson Library
Teaching interests: nineteenth-century German, German-American literature and culture
Research interests: reception and transformation in nineteenth-century America of German cultural materials, immigrant identity formation, German nationalism and national identity, and nineteenth-century political drama and poetry
Education
Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, Washington University
M.A., Germanic Languages and Literatures, Washington University
B.A., Germanic Languages and Literatures, History, Washington University
Teaching
I teach courses on German-language literature and culture, the German transatlantic experience, and contemporary German-speaking Europe
Teaching Interests
- German-language literature
- Culture of German-speaking Europe
- Transatlantic
- German-American
- Contemporary German-speaking Europe
Research
My research focuses on poetry written by immigrants in the U.S. in response to WWI; German ethnic culture in America, cultural transfer and transformation, cultural identity; Reinhold Solger; and 19th-century German political literature, nationalism, and national identity.
Research Interests
- World War I
- Immigrants
- Poetry
- 19th-century German culture in America
- Cultural transfer
- Cultural identity
- Immigrant identity
- Reinhold Solger
- 19th-century
- Political literature
- Nationalism: national identity
Service
I serve as Academic Director of the European Studies Program, which is coordinating KU's WWI Centennial Commemoration 2014-2018. I also serve as Academic Director of the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures.
Selected Publications
Vancheva, L. A. (2012). Reading German Culture, 1789-1918: Distant Readings/Descriptive Turns, Washington University in St. Louis. JLT - Journal of Literary Theory(2012) 10. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. http://www.JLTonline.de
Vanchena, L. A. (2011). Transatlantische Interpretationen des Amerikaerlebens: Reinhold Solger's Anton in Amerika. In A. Ritter (Ed.), Amerika im europäischen Roman um 1850. Varianten transatlantischer Erfahrung (pp. 237-50). Vienna: Praesens Verlag. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/11523
Solger, R. (2006). Anton in America: A Novel from German-American Life (L. A Vanchena & W. Sollors). Vol. 3 of New Directions in German-American Studies. 3 New York: Peter Lang. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/12472
Vanchena, L. A. (2005). From Domestic Farce to Abolitionist Satire: Reinhold Solger's Reframing of the Union (1860). In L. Tatlock & M. Erlin (Eds.), German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation (pp. 289-316). Rochester, NY: Camden House. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/11512
Vanchena, L. A. (2000). North American Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Literature 26. Political Poetry in Periodicals and the Shaping of German National Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century (J. L. Sammons, Ed., Vol. 26). New York: Peter Lang. 290. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/12463
Professor Vanchena joined the department in 2008 as Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. Her monograph, Political Poetry in Periodicals and the Shaping of German National Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century (2000), demonstrates that between 1840 and 1871 German periodicals regularly featured poems as part of the public debate over contemporary political developments. In 2006 she published Anton in America: A Novel from German-American Life, the first English translation and scholarly edition of a work written in 1862 by the witty intellectual revolutionary, historian, and journalist Reinhold Solger. She has also published articles on nineteenth-century German and German-American literature.
She is currently working on a book-length study of Solger as an agent of German-American cultural transfer in the 1850s and 1860s. Her research interests include the reception and transformation in nineteenth-century America of German cultural materials, immigrant identity formation, German nationalism and national identity, and nineteenth-century political drama and poetry. Her teaching interests include nineteenth-century German and German-American literature and culture. Professor Vanchena has received grants from the American Philosophical Society, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation (Berlin). In addition to participating regularly in national and international conferences, she serves as an Editor of the H-Net list for Transnational German Studies (H-TGS).
