Professor Geigner's scholarship and teaching focus on the way people perform—in writing, in speech, in everyday life, and in more codified performance situations—their citizenship and community. She is especially interested in ideas of nationalism, immigration, and ethnicity, and how communication practices create a sense of belonging.

Prof. Geigner’s research explores the contributions Irish, Polish, African American, Italian, and Mexican immigrant and migrant communities made to Chicago’s cultural identity at and between the city’s two worlds fairs—the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the Century of Progress in 1933. She also researches Chicago’s theatre history.