Oral history interview with Ellen MacKay, 2014

Biographical Note

Ellen MacKay attended Barnard College and earned her PhD in 2003 from Columbia University from the Program in Theater within the English Department. She worked closely with Jean Howard, IRWAG Director 1997-1999, and also earned the Graduate Certificate from IRWAG in 1999. In 2014, she was a tenured professor in the English Department at Indiana University-Bloomington and Director of Graduate Studies. Her research and writing focuses on early modern English drama and public culture and Western theatre and performance. Her dissertation at Columbia became her first book, Persecution, Plague, and Fire: Fugitive Histories of the Stage in Early Modern England, which examines historical disasters and catastrophes that afflicted the theater

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Ellen MacKay discusses her early life including her high school studies, her undergraduate years at Barnard College, and her appreciation of the theater-all of which helped direct her course of study. MacKay details her most influential courses and instructors, including an undergraduate Feminist Text course with Ellen Chesler and a graduate course on early modern theater with Jean Howard, which led to her personal pursuit of a greater knowledge of history, literary criticism, and feminist theory. Jean Howard, along with Julie Crawford and Rachel Adams, became both a mentor and role model for MacKay and led her to pursue a graduate certificate at IRWGS. MacKay discusses the inspiration and guidance she received under these women and others. Additionally, MacKay addresses the influence IRWGS's Feminist Pedagogy workshop had on her career. MacKay goes on to discuss her experience pursuing tenure at the Indiana University and the challenges she faced doing so after the birth of her child. MacKay then addresses the divisions amongst scholars about childbirth, the barriers between faculty and administration, and the necessity of gender studies. MacKay also discusses the value of institutions like Barnard College and IRWGS, which place identity questions at the forefront and help frame cultural difference through their interdisciplinary nature

Subjects

• Barnard College.
• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Dziedzic, Sarah, interviewer.
• Feminism and higher education--United States.
• Feminist theory.
• Howard, Jean E. (Jean Elizabeth), 1948-
• Indiana University, Bloomington.
• Interdisciplinary approach in education.
• Interviews.
• MacKay, Ellen--Interviews.
• Motherhood.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2014