Professor Jeffrey Geiger

Biography

Jeffrey Geiger's background ranges from research into film and literature to filmmaking, with a focus on editing. After completing an MA and PhD at UCLA he came to Essex, serving as the University's first Director of Film Studies and establishing the Centre for Film and Screen Media in 2001. He has worked internationally, including teaching at Malta and UCLA, and has offered seminars at Salerno, Granada, Porto, Thessaloniki, and numerous other universities. Leadership roles at Essex have included Director of the Centre for Film and Screen Media, Director of the American Studies Centre, Graduate Director, Research seminars co-ordinator, MA Course Director, and Acting Head of Department. He is currently co-director of the new MA Documentary Film. He is a member of the Essex Human Rights Centre, The Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship, and the Centre for Film and Screen Media. Research has focused on documentary, postcolonial cinemas, comparative media, queer cinema, island studies, and Oceania and the Pacific. Books include American Documentary Film: Projecting the Nation (2011, Theatre Library Association Book Award finalist); Facing the Pacific: Polynesia and the U.S. Imperial Imagination (2007); Film Analysis: A Norton Reader (with R. L. Rutsky, 2nd ed, 2013); and Cinematicity in Media History (2013, with Karin Littau). The latter developed from a special issue of Comparative Critical Studies, 'Cinematicity', based on an international conference hosted at Essex. Articles have appeared in journals such as PMLA, Studies in Documentary Film, Third Text, African American Review, ZAA, Cinema Journal, New Formations, and Film International, with further contributions to book collections, encyclopedias, and periodicals such as The Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian. Recent publications include chapters on New Nigerian cinema in The Routledge Companion to World Cinema (Remapping World Cinema), colour film and Pacific tourism in Discourses of Imperialism in the Pacific (Routledge), and 'Visualizing Exploration' in A Cultural History of Exploration (Bloomsbury). Visiting Professor, UCLA, 2024 British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship, 2021-22 Member of professional organizations: NECS, BAAS, SCMS, and BAFTSS Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute Ph.D. supervision areas include: film and media (including practice as research, PaR); documentary; US cinema (especially studies of ethnicity and/or gender); transmedia; colour film; Oceania and visual cultures.

Qualifications

• BA Cornell University,

• MA University of California, Los Angeles,

• PhD University of California Los Angeles,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Director of the Centre for Film and Screen Media, Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex (1/1/2013 - 30/9/2020)

• Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex (1/1/2010 - 1/1/2013)

• Director of the American Studies Centre, University of Essex (1/1/2004 - 1/1/2008)

• Director of the Centre for Film Studies, University of Essex (1/1/2001 - 30/8/2003)

Other academic

• External Examiner, MA Film Studies, University of Malta (30/8/2018 - present)

• External Examiner, Film Studies, University of Surrey (30/8/2015 - 30/8/2018)

• External Examiner, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck, University of London (30/8/2011 - 30/8/2016)

• Visiting Professor, Film, Television, and Digital Media, University of California, Los Angeles (1/1/2024 - 1/4/2024)

• Executive Committee, New Zealand Studies Association (NZSA) (1/4/2021 - present)

• Editorial Board, Intellect, Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies (1/4/2021 - present)

• Advisory Editorial Board, Routledge, Remapping World Cinemas (1/4/2017 - present)

• Visiting Scholar, English Department, University of Rochester (NY) (1/9/2003 - 30/5/2004)