Kovacs's first publications deal with modernist US fiction from the turn of the century, notably novels and nonfiction by Henry James during and beyond the major phase, in which she studied figurations of consciousness and experience. As a corollary to reading James, Kovacs explored the representation of manners in Edith Wharton's novels and nonfiction, and eventually zoomed in on Wharton's travel writings that showcase how one can view space as a store of historical and cultural continuities. Issues of memory are also targeted by Kovacs's essays on contemporary historical and auto/bio/graphical novels by minority authors.