What is the meaning of love, care, and intelligence in the Age of AI? How have literary works, art, and social media renegotiated emotions and shaped public cultures of feeling? How do we want to relate to humans and non-human life forms, and how can literature and other media help us imagine new possibilities? These are some of the key questions I explore in my recent research.

Academic Books

Book cover titled "Rethinking Feeling" by Holly A. Yanacek. It features a painting of a woman with red hair, dressed in black, lying on a green sofa with her head resting on a pillow and holding a book.

Rethinking Feeling: On the Renegotiation of Emotions in German Novels at the Fin de Siècle (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026)

A woman with a red headscarf holding a child stands in a doorway, while an elderly woman and two children stand outside. The elderly woman is reaching for the child holding a piece of bread, and the girl is looking at the elderly woman. There is a bush with pink flowers on the right side of the image.

Coming soon! Ambiguities of Care in Nineteenth-Century German Literature: Forming, Maintaining, and Disrupting Communities (Forthcoming with DeGruyter Brill in 2027) - Edited by John B. Lyon, Heather I. Sullivan & Holly A. Yanacek

Book cover titled "Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History," edited by Erika Quinn and Holly Yanack, published by De Gruyter, featuring illustrated robotic arm reaching out to a cat.

Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History (DeGruyter, 2021)

Cover page of a book titled "Keywords for Today" with a list of words related to social issues and the keywords project editors Colin MacCabe and Holly Yanack.

Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Book Trailer: Animals, Machines, and AI: On Human and Non-Human Emotions in Modern German Cultural History (DeGruyter 2021)

Order the Book or Read the Open Access Introduction Here