Geraldine Heng

Geraldine Heng is Mildred Hajek Vacek and John Roman Vacek Chair in English and Comparative Literature[1] (formerly Perceval Professor[2]) at the University of Texas at Austin, where, as of November 2022, she was also affiliated with Middle Eastern studies, Women’s studies, Jewish Studies, and the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Social Justice.[1] Heng's work focuses on literary, social and cultural encounters between societies in the period 500–1500 CE. She is noted as a key figure in the development of postcolonial approaches to the European Middle Ages, premodern critical race studies, and critical early global studies.

Geraldine Heng
TitleProfessor of English and Comparative Literature
SpouseJanadas Devan
Awards
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisGender Magic: Desire, Romance, and the Feminine in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1990)
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian
Sub-disciplineMiddle Ages
InstitutionsUniversity of Texas at Austin

Education and career

Heng took her doctoral degree at Cornell University, completing her PhD thesis, Gender Magic: Desire, Romance, and the Feminine in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in 1990.[3]

Heng coedits the Cambridge University Press Elements series in the Global Middle Ages, and the University of Pennsylvania Press series, RaceB4Race: Critical Studies of the Premodern. She is also noted for the article 'State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore', co-written with her husband Janadas Devan,[4][5] critiquing social eugenics in Singapore.[6] Among her various keynotes and plenaries, Heng was the keynote speaker at the 46th Annual New England Medieval Conference, 3 December 2020. Her talk was entitled 'The Politics of Race in the European Middle Ages'.[7]

In April 2023 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[8]

Books
  • (ed.) Teaching the Global Middle Ages New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2022. ISBN 9781603295178
  • The Global Middle Ages: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. ISBN 9781009204781
  • England and the Jews: How Religion and Violence Created the First Racial State in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. ISBN 9781108698184
  • The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN 9781108422789
  • Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 2004, 2012), ISBN 0231125275

Awards

Her book The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (2018) won four awards, including the American Academy of Religion award for excellence in historical studies,[9] the Otto Gründler book prize,[10] the Robert W. Hamilton Book Award grand prize,[11] and the Association of American Publishers PROSE award for world history.[12]

References
  1. "Profile for Geraldine Heng at UT Austin". University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  2. "Profile for Geraldine Heng at UT Austin". University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
  3. Geraldine G. Heng, "Gender Magic: Desire, Romance, and the Feminine in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1990).
  4. Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018), p. xiii.
  5. K. Kanagalatha, 'Mother was our World', The Straits Times (13 May 2018).
  6. Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, 'State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore', in Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia, ed. Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 195–215.
  7. Pagès, Meriem. "46th Annual New England Medieval Conference, Virtual Meeting". Keene State College. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  8. cue (2023-04-24). "Singaporean Geraldine Heng elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences | The Straits Times". www.straitstimes.com. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  9. "Winners Book Awards". American Academy of Religion. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  10. "Gründler Book Prize". Western Michigan University. 30 September 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  11. "Robert W. Hamilton Book Awards Winners". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  12. "2019 Award Winners". Association of American Publishers. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
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