Karen R. Emmerich

Karen R. Emmerich serves as Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, specializing in modern Greek literary traditions and translation theory. Her interdisciplinary work bridges textual scholarship with migration studies, examining how literary canons intersect with citizenship regimes through processes of inclusion and exclusion.

Her research centers on modern Greek literature, translation practices, experimental poetics, and textual instability. Emmerich's groundbreaking monograph Literary Translation and the Making of Originals (2017) redefines translation as an iterative process that actively constructs original texts, analyzing case studies from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Emily Dickinson. Current projects investigate how Greek citizenship and literary canons co-evolve through nationalist frameworks and migration experiences.

Emmerich's translated publications reveal consistent engagement with contemporary Greek socio-political crises, particularly economic collapse and refugee movements. Her 2018 translations Good Will Come From the Sea and What's Left of the Night exemplify thematic preoccupations with urban alienation, historical trauma, and identity reconstruction across temporal and linguistic boundaries.

Her scholarly contributions have been recognized through prestigious awards:

• PEN Translation Prize
• National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Translation Grant
• Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA) Award
• Best Translated Book Award (BTBA)

Emmerich maintains active translation practice alongside academic work, having rendered fourteen Greek literary works into English since 2002. Her current research explores parallel constructions of Greek citizenship and literary canons through targeted inclusion/exclusion mechanisms, with forthcoming monograph Greek Literature on Shifting Ground: Nationalism, Migration, and Belonging in the Modern Greek Literary Canon.