Verena Kick

Verena Kick is an Assistant Professor of German at Georgetown University, affiliated with the Department of German in the College of Arts & Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle (2019). Her research focuses on 20th-century German modernism, digital humanities, and visual culture, particularly the intersection of text and photography in Weimar-era Germany. She is currently developing the book project Photobook Politics, exploring photobooks' role in shaping ideological views between 1918–1945, and co-directs the Adapting Kafka digital project with Prof. Carsten Strathausen.

• Education: Ph.D. in German, University of Washington, Seattle (2019)

Her research interests include intermedial studies, photobooks, digital curation, and the materiality of media. She has held a KWI International Fellowship (2022/23) and organized major symposia like the Digital Kafka Symposium (2024). Her work bridges traditional scholarship with digital innovation, emphasizing accessibility and public engagement.

Her publications analyze figures like Kafka, Herzog, Tucholsky, and Schwarzenbach, focusing on how visual and textual media shape historical narratives. She teaches German language and courses on Berlin's cultural history, gender in cinema, and modernist crises.

• Awards: KWI International Fellowship (2022/23)

Her grants include support from Georgetown’s Digital Research Initiative and Humanities Initiative. She collaborates on multimodal projects to preserve and reinterpret literary classics through digital platforms like Scalar and Critical Commons.

Her Photobook Politics project examines how material forms influenced public discourse, while Adapting Kafka tracks global adaptations of The Trial. She also conducts archival research at the German Literature Archive (DLA) in Marbach, supported by the Kurt Tucholsky Foundation.