Professor Jennifer Geddes

Professional Background

Professor Jennifer Geddes earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. in religious studies and a B.A. in English and French from the University of Virginia. During her fellowship at the Museum, she was Research Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Co- Director and Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and editor of The Hedgehog Review: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Culture, an award-winning scholarly journal. For her Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellowship, Professor Geddes conducted research on “The Rhetorics of Evil.”

In addition to her extensive work with The Hedgehog Review, Professor Geddes’ scholarly research has been published in numerous book chapters and articles including “Banal Evil and Useless Knowledge: Hannah Arendt and Charlotte Delbo on Evil after the Holocaust” (in Hypatia, 2003); “Introduction,” Evil After Post-Modernism: Histories, Narratives, Ethics, ed.; “A Fascination for Stories: The Call to Community and Conversion in Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Storyteller” (in Literature and Theology, 1996) and “Memory and Mourning” (in Martyrdom and Resistance, 1995 and 1996). She has been an invited lecturer for various colleges and organizations and has presented a variety of conference papers. Professor Geddes is the recipient of several esteemed fellowships and funding including the Emilia Galla Struppa Fellowship at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, University of Virginia Summer Research Fellowship (2002), Hannah Arendt Fellowship (1997-1999), and DuPont Fellowship (1997-1998), among others.

Fellowship Research

During her tenure at the Center, Professor Geddes advanced her research on rhetorics of evil by examining the ways in which evil is narrated, spoken about, and represented in language. By focusing on three types of texts—literary works, first-person accounts of the Holocaust, and theoretical works on the Holocaust—Professor Geddes further understood the diverse ways survivors, perpetrators, and witnesses speak, write, and think about evil.

Professor Geddes was in residence at the Mandel Center from August 21 to December 18, 2006.