Oral history interview with Patricia E. Dailey, 2015

Biographical Note

Patricia Dailey received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and in 2002 recevied her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, and LMS from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (2005). Patricia Dailey joined Columbia faculty in 2004 after a holding a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University (2002-2004). She specializes in medieval literature and critical theory, focusing on women's mystical texts, and Anglo-Saxon poetry and prose. Her book Promised Bodies: Time, Language, and Corporeality in Medieval Women's Mystical Texts (Columbia University Press, 2013) examines the relation between gender, temporality, the body, and language in medieval mystical texts, with a focus on the thirteenth century mystic Hadewijch. Her next book project, Responsive Subjects: Affect and Anglo-Saxon Literature, focuses on Anglo-Saxon literature and the use of affect in medieval pedagogy. She is also the co-editor, with Veerle Fraeters, of A Companion to Hadewijch (forthcoming, Brill). Recent articles include, "Riddles, Wonder, and Responsiveness in Anglo-Saxon Literature," in the Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature 500-1150 (2012); "The Body and its Senses" and "Time and Memory" in theCambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism (2012); "Children of Promise: The Bodies of Hadewijch of Antwerp,"Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies(Spring, 2011); and "Questions of Dwelling in Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Medieval Mysticism: Inhabiting Landscape, Body, Mind," in New Medieval Literatures (vol 8, 2006). Other articles have appeared in Women's Studies Quarterly, Witness Issue (2007), Le Secret: Motif et Moteur de la Litterature(1999), Les Imaginaires du Mal 2000), the PMLA's special issue on Derrida (2005), and Routledge's Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. In addition to her work in medieval literature, she has translated works by Giorgio Agamben (The Time That Remains, Stanford 2005), Jean-François Lyotard, and Antonio Negri. She is the founder of the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium and co-founder of the Affect Studies University Seminar

Scope and Contents

In the first session of this interview, Dailey explains her introduction to medieval studies, the benefits of graduate studies, and her activism as the Director of IRWGS. Dailey discusses her graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine in Comparative Literature under Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard. Dailey discusses how she developed her own literary approach and considers her work to be a reaction to the first wave of feminist medieval scholarship. She cites Caroline Walker Bynum's book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, as a particularly inspiring work. Dailey goes on to describe her role as Director of IRWGS, including her introduction of a University seminar on affect studies, and the involvement of professors from EALAC (East Asian Languages and Cultures), such as Hikari Hori and Mana Kia, with IRWGS. Dailey also describes the creation of the Junior Faculty Advisory Board. Dailey describes the challenges of single parenting and the pressures of the academy, naming Alondra Nelson as a mentor throughout these challenges. In the second session of this interview, Dailey discusses the ways IRWGS has changed since 2000, citing the increase in interdisciplinary programming and the desirability of non-traditional majors. Dailey goes on to explain the origin of an IRWGS class entitled Genealogies of Feminism, and how she understands feminism as a set of practices. Lastly, Dailey offers insight on the origins of Queer Studies within IRWGS, explaining the roles of Greg Pflugfelder, Rosalind Morris, and David Kurnick in its creation

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Dailey, Patricia--Interviews.
• Dziedzic, Sarah, interviewer.
• Feminism and higher education--United States.
• Feminist theory.
• Gay and lesbian studies--United States.
• Interdisciplinary approach in education.
• Interviews.
• Middle Ages--Study and teaching.
• Motherhood.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Women medievalists.

Access Conditions

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