Jeffrey Olick is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and History at the University of Virginia. He is Co-President of the Memory Studies Association and an elected member of the Sociological Research Association.

Olick received a B.A. with High Honors from Swarthmore College (1986) and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale (1993).  Before joining the faculty at UVa, Olick was a member of the sociology department faculty at Columbia University in New York City for eleven years. 

Olick is a cultural and historical sociologist whose work has focused on collective memory and commemoration, critical theory, transitional justice, postwar Germany, and sociological theory more generally. Recent and forthcoming books include a six-volume collection, A Cultural History of Memory, edited with Stefan Berger (Bochum), as well as new translations and critical editions of two books by Maurice Halbwachs in collaboration with Sarah Daynes (UNC-Greensboro): The Collective Memory and The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land. Further work, together with Christina Simko (Williams College), includes developing the outlines of what they call “tragic sociology.” 

Olick frequently speaks at universities, conferences, and public forums around the world, and his work has been translated into Spanish, German, Polish, Turkish, Estonian, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.