Born in Germany and raised in Brooklyn, Fenigstein joined the Kenyon faculty in 1974. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, the University of Miami in Florida, George Mason University in Virginia, the Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, the University of Kent at Canterbury, the University of London and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Currently chair of the Department of Psychology at Kenyon, he was honored with the Tomsich Science Award in 1998 for excellence in scientific research. Fenigstein has done research and written on media violence and aggression, the evolution of human sexuality, self-consciousness, paranoid behavior and the psychology of genocide. He is currently involved in work on the human capacity for self-deception and the underlying causes of different types of prejudices.
His wife Audrey is an artist and they have three sons, David, Marc and Steven.
Areas of Expertise
Self-consciousness, paranoia, evolution of human sexuality, prejudice and genocide.
Education
1974 — Doctor of Philosophy from Univ Texas Austin
1969 — Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College