- Max Ticktin
- Katherine E. Aron-Beller
- Nathan Brown
- Eric Cline
- Jeffrey Cohen
- Paul Duff
- Robert Eisen
- Amitai Etzioni
- Leslie B. Jacobson
- Shoshana Marcus
- Faye S. Moskowitz
- Yaron Peleg
- Bernard Reich
- Walter Reich
- Marc Saperstein
- Daniel Schwartz
- Sergio Waisman
Professor and Chair, Department
of English
(202) 994-6180 | Rome Hall 760 | jjcohen@gwu.edu
B.A., University of Rochester; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University
Professor Cohen's research interests include: cultural clash and hybridity; the social function of monsters; Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, English, French, Irish, Welsh, Jewish, and Latin cultures in their medieval overlap; methodological work on postcolonial theory; theories and representations of time. Professor Cohen has published several studies including Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages; Medieval Identity Machines; Monster Theory: Reading Culture; Becoming Male in the Middle Ages; The Postcolonial Middle Agee; Thinking the Limits of the Body; Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles. His article in a 2004 issue of Speculum , the prestigious journal of medieval studies, analyzes the earliest documented accusation against the Jews of the ritual murder of a Christian child: in 1144 at Norwich, England. Cohen shows how this accusation served to foster a sense of cohesive identity among the diverse Christian inhabitants of Norwich through solidarity with the newly discovered "saint" and "martyr," and by defining the Jews of Norwich as the outsider, the enemy, "whose murderous hands provoke an unceasing flow of Christian blood."