Tanvi Solanki

Tanvi Solanki is an Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea. During 2024–2025, she will be a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. She earned a BA from the University of Chicago and a PhD in German from Princeton University (2016), followed by a postdoctoral associate role at Cornell University (2016–2018) and visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute, Humboldt University, and the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.

• Education
  • BA: University of Chicago
  • PhD: Princeton University, Department of German (2016)

Her research bridges 18th- and 19th-century German literature and philosophy with interdisciplinary frameworks such as sound studies, media theory, classical reception studies, and linguistic anthropology. She explores canonical formations through the lens of ‘listening to difference’, analyzing how cultural and linguistic distinctions are constructed via aural practices in literature, sermons, and ethnographic sources.

Recent publications include work on J.G. Herder’s aural theories, the BBC’s Listening Project, and colonial philology’s role in shaping racial ideologies. Her awards include grants from Yonsei University, Cornell, Princeton, and the DAAD. She co-edits special issues on dismantling German literary canons and interrogates aural power dynamics in migration contexts.

• Scientific Awards
  • Yonsei University, Future-Leading Fund for New Faculty (2018–2021)
  • Cornell Society for the Humanities and Andrew W. Mellon Interdisciplinary Writing Group Fellowship (2017–2018)
  • Princeton Center for Digital Humanities Seed Grant (2016)
  • DAAD Graduate Research Scholarship (2012–2013)