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Jehanne Gheith

Jehanne Gheith, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature

Education:

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1992
MSW, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2009
MA in Russian Literature, Stanford University, Stanford California, 1987
BA in Russian Literature (summa cum laude), Boston University, Boston, MA, 1983
Contact Info:

321C Languages Bldg, 133 Franklin Center, Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-3147
gheith@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/web/education/~gheith
Research Interests: 19th & 20th Century Literature, Gulag, Women's & Gender Studies, Cultural Memory

Current projects: "Voices from the Gulag": will appear in January 2011 from Palgrave MacMillan, Book ms, "A Dog Named Stalin: Memory, Trauma and the Gulag,? is a study of the Gulag based on life-history oral accounts., New research project beginning on the emerging Russian Hospice movement

My book manuscript, "A Dog Named Stalin: Memory, Trauma and the Gulag," is a study of the Gulag based on life-history oral accounts. The analysis is based on multiple interviews I have conducted over five years with fifteen survivors of the Gulag and their children. The study is organized around three themes: 1) the effects of about fifty years of enforced silence on individual memory; 2) the problem of public mourning and memorialization; and 3) an investigation of the ways in which the category of trauma must be modified or altered to suit the Russian context. Because many common ("Western") assumptions about trauma in general, and particularly around trauma and the Holocaust, are not adequate for the Russian context, the exploration of culturally specific reasons for these differences on one of the key contributions made by my study.

Comments:

Jehanne Gheith is an Associate Professor of Russian Culture at Duke University and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, who has experience working with Duke Hospice and now has a small private psychotherapy practice in Aging, Illness, and Wellness Transitions with a specialization in Pet Loss. At Duke, she led the International Comparative Studies Program for nine years, together with Marcy Litle, reshaping and building this interdisciplinary major. She has also chaired the Slavic Department. In both her academic and clinical work, Professor Gheith is interested in the intersection of narrative and loss; more recently, she has included the human-animal bond in this work. She regularly leads community conversations and workshops on making aging and crisis medical situations a richer experience than is often the case. In all of these areas, Professor Gheith's focus is on the intersection of story and loss and the richness that can come from exploring these connections in depth and in multiple dimensions. She is currently working on a book about the connections between her clinical work and her research in Russian literature.

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching (Spring 2024):

  • Housecs 59.03, House course (sp top) Synopsis
    Perkins 088, M 07:00 PM-08:30 PM
  • Sociol 180s.01, Society, self, natural world Synopsis
    Languages 114, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM
Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Fowler, M; Gheith, J. "A Therapeutic Welcome: Mental Health within the Reality Ministries Disability Community." Journal of Disability & Religion 27.2 (January, 2023): 358-382. [doi]  [abs]
  2. Goss, KA. "Introduction." 10 (January, 2014): 265-270. [doi]
  3. Gheith, J. "Reflections on Sibling Grief." Epilogue (Fall, 2005).
  4. Izatt, JA; Fujimoto, JG; Tuchin, VV. "Introduction." 8213 (January, 2012): xv-xvii. [doi]
  5. Gheith, J. "Article on Gulag Research." Encompass (2012). (Spring, 2012. Although this is a student-run journal, it is important for me that Duke students share in my research on the Gulag, so I inlcude it here.)

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