Oliver Geffen is a second year DPhil candidate in Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, supervised by Professor Hindy Najman. His doctoral research investigates the cultural and theological implications of the Binding of Isaac (the Akedah), in both ancient texts and in contemporary Hebrew literature. His work interrogates the limits of literary protest, examining whether contemporary Hebrew texts that invoke the Binding to resist divinely mandated fates inadvertently commit themselves to the Binding’s redemptive framework. His work draws on early 20th-century theorists and thinkers—including Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas—as well as contemporary developments in reading practices and hermeneutics.
Oliver was recently awarded the Taube Award from the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (OCHJS) for his research on Walter Benjamin’s concept of Scripture. This work is forthcoming as a chapter in a De Gruyter volume marking the centennial of Benjamin’s essay, The Task of the Translator. He has presented this work in conferences at Oxford and Cambridge, and has co-hosted an afterhours event on this topic at the National Gallery in London.
Oliver’s translation work has been steadily gaining traction, with his translation of a selection of vignettes by Esther Orner recently published by Asymptote. Orner is a Holocaust survivor and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and this is the first time her work is translated into English. His work with Nicholas de Lange on the translation of S. Yizhar’s Days of Ziklag is ongoing, with a full manuscript expected by the end of 2026.