Kirki Kefalea

Kirki Kefalea is Professor of Comparative Religious Literature and Head of the Department of Social Theology and Religious Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). She is also Director of the Laboratory of Religious Studies and Bioethics of Religions “Vasileios Fanaras” at the School of Theology.

She studied German and French language and literature and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Saarland University, Germany, in 1994, supported by a Friedrich Ebert Foundation scholarship and graduating magna cum laude. Her doctoral dissertation, examining the reception of Greece in modern European narrative literature, was published in Germany in 1995.

Her research focuses on comparative literature, the relationship between literature and religion, representations of Greece in European writing, and the influence of biblical texts on modern Greek and European literature. Her scholarship explores how religious traditions, symbols, and narratives are interpreted and transformed within literary works, with particular attention to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

She has published several scholarly books and studies, including Noli Me Tangere: The Image of Mary Magdalene in Modern Greek Poetry, Love Is Strong as Death: The Song of Songs in Modern Greek Literature, and Landscapes of the Soul: Studies in Modern Literature. She has also worked on literary translation and the editing of scholarly publications.

Professor Kefalea has taught at the Hellenic Open University and held several academic leadership positions at NKUA, including Vice-Chair of her Department and Director of Postgraduate Studies. She is involved in international academic cooperation, including the CIVIS European University Alliance, contributing to interdisciplinary exchanges among the humanities, religious studies, and cultural research. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Philosophy and Ideas.