Short Biography
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is a Professor of English and the Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI) at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Born in Cambridge, MA and educated at the University of Rochester (where he studied English, creative writing and classics) and at Harvard University (where he obtained his PhD in English), he has taught at GW since 1994.
Cohen's research explores what monsters reveal about the cultures that dream them; the literatures of the British archipelago; how postcolonial studies, queer theory, postmodernism and posthumanism might help us to better understand the texts and cultures of the Middle Ages (and might be transformed by that encounter); the limits and the creativity of our taxonomic impulses; the complexities of time when thought outside of progress narratives; speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, and other methods for discerning the complicated lives of what is supposed to be inanimate; and ecological theory. "Stories of Stone," his current project, is funded by fellowships from the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation, and investigates the liveliness of our most seemingly inert substance. He is also editing a collection for the University of Minnesota Press on Prismatic Ecologies; a volume for Oliphaunt Books called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects; and (with Lowell Duckert) a special issue of the journal postmedieval on ecomaterialism.
Cohen serves on the editorial board of punctum books and postmedieval. A selection of his books and other publications may be accessed through this website. He founded the group blog In the Middle, where along with Eileen Joy, Karl Steel and Mary Kate Hurley he is an active blogger. Much of his work in progress appears there. He is also active on Twitter.