Elizabeth Goodstein

Elizabeth Goodstein is a Professor of English and the Liberal Arts at Emory University. She holds affiliations with the Departments of Comparative Literature, Philosophy, History, German Studies, and the Program in Psychoanalytic Studies. Her research bridges literary studies, critical theory, and intellectual history, examining modernity's impact on subjectivity through European literature and culture since the Industrial Revolution.

Education: B.A. in Ideas and Methods from the University of Chicago; M.A. and Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.

Her work explores modernity's crises through boredom studies, disciplinary structures, and thinkers like Georg Simmel. Major publications include Experience without Qualities: Boredom and Modernity (MLA Prize winner) and Georg Simmel and the Disciplinary Imaginary. Current projects investigate boredom's role in technology and consumer culture.

Awards include the MLA First Book Prize and DAAD Prize. She co-directs Emory's 'Europe and Beyond' initiative and teaches interdisciplinary courses on cultural theory, modernity, and critical pedagogy.