Jaclyn Geller

Jaclyn Geller was born in New York City and corralled by two well-intentioned adults into the suburban exodus. She grew up in Southern Westchester, whose manicured tranquility seemed to betoken the deranged slashers one sees in films. (These never actually materialized.) College in Eastern Ohio provided a stark rural contrast as did Jerusalem, with its cultural diversity and luminous beauty. There she taught English and studied Hebrew, advancing to the point where she spoke like a nefarious toddler and eventually, a hip eight-year-old. She returned to New York City and studied literature, writing her doctoral dissertation on domestic satire and becoming embroiled in debates about eighteenth-century literary culture. These include questions like, Why is the most intellectually anarchic, generically experimental period in English literature still known for moral consensus and static equipoise? Why do its scholars document the evolution of poetry and fiction separately when these forms evolved together? How can experts overlook differences between classical and early-modern satire when undergraduates see them clearly? Why did the idea that marriage represents the gold standard of emotional maturity (and a timeless civic good) originate in early modernity? Compelled by these issues, she has unwisely ping-ponged between academic, general audience, and crossover writing.

Driving Professor Geller’s teaching is a belief that literature is the most profound mimetic reflection of human life, and reading it is the best, most gratifying way to sharpen one’s critical faculties. Her favorite word is “hope.” Her least favorite word is “folks.” She does not understand the expression, “my bad,” but that may be her limitation. Recently she’s been enjoying the adjectives “saurian” and “architectonic.”