Oral history interview with Julie Crawford, 2015

Biographical Note

Julie Crawford works on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature and culture. She has written on Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Margaret Cavendish, the Sidneys, Anne Clifford, Margaret Hoby, and Mary Wroth, as well as on post-Reformation religious culture, the history of reading, and the history of sexuality. Her book, Marvelous Protestantism: Monstrous Births in Post-Reformation England, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2005, and her book Mediatrix: Women and the Politics of Literary Production in Early Modern Englandwas published in early 2013. In 2015, she was completing a book entitled Margaret Cavendish's Political Career

Scope and Contents

Julie Crawford begins this interview with a discussion of her time as a junior faculty member at Columbia University and her experience working within a union at Simon Fraser University. She explains how this experience increased her awareness of unfair institutional practices and contributed to the subsequent creation of the Junior Faculty Committee to empower faculty. Crawford talks about joining IRWGS, being respected as an individual, and the challenges of being a female professor. She cites Jean Howard as a mentor. As the Chair of Lit Hum, Crawford describes the Feminist to the Core Series, and how to transform classroom debate into fruitful discussion. Crawford discusses the ways in which IRWGS has become more interdisciplinary, and the titular recognition of "sexuality" in IRWGS. Crawford discusses her close relationship with Katherine Franke, and the importance of intellectual and institutional support among IRWGS faculty. Crawford continues with a discussion of thinking globally, the relationship of feminism to global justice, and Third World Feminism. Crawford also talks about the Title IX complaint filed against Columbia University and No Red Tape's shortcomings, her own experience with activism as an undergraduate student, the importance of intellectualism in activism, and how she was affected by the death of Trayvon Martin. She goes on to discuss the benefits and limitations of the internet for contemporary feminists, IRWGS's relationship to Columbia's CORE curriculum, and how to minimize misogyny on campus. Finally, Crawford describes the size of the university administration and number of faculty appointments during her career at Columbia.

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Crawford, Julie, 1968---Interviews.
• Cyberfeminism.
• Dziedzic, Sarah, interviewer.
• Feminism and higher education--United States.
• Feminist theory.
• Interdisciplinary approach in education.
• Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Sex discrimination in higher education.
• Simon Fraser University.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2015