McCort's scholarship bridges literary analysis, religious studies, and east–west comparative philosophy. His research topics have included the Zen-like qualities of Kafka's fiction, the influence of
Rainer Maria Rilke and Zen on
J.D. Salinger, and the representation of madness in the works of
E. T. A. Hoffmann. He is the author of several novels, including
The Man Who Loved Doughnuts (2015), a comic narrative about academic life;
Duncan (2019), described by the author as a "thinking man’s thriller"; and
The Golden Pot (2022), a modern-day fairy tale. In 2017, he published
A Kafkaesque Memoir: Confessions from the Analytic Couch, a personal reflection on the influence of Kafka on his life and his experiences during a nine-year
Jungian psychoanalysis. His translation of
Georg Trakl’s poem
Verfall (Decay), retitled
Rot, reflects his broader interest in German lyric poetry and its philosophical resonances. == Selected publications ==