Kristian Svane

Kristian Svane (he/they) is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. His academic journey includes studying at the University of Cologne and Washington University in St. Louis as a Max Kade Scholar. He holds a B.A. in Teaching, History, and German, and an M.A. in German Literatures from Hamburg University, Germany.

Kristian's research focuses on the relationship between literature and sociology, particularly in German, Danish, and French literatures. He currently studies so-called autosociobiographies, examining how social and geographical mobility intersect, and how this genre shapes the boundaries of the contemporary literary field. At Yale, he seeks to explore the political and social imaginary in the works of 20th-century modernism and to inquire into potentials and affordances of poetic alterity. Centrally, he asks how the novel’s formal dissolution opens up literary space for new social relationalities.

Department: Germanic Languages and Literatures