Oral history interview with Gregory M. Pflugfelder, 2015

Biographical Note

Greg Pflugfelder's work engages the construction of masculinities, the history of the body, and representations of monstrosity. He teaches courses on the cultural history of monsters, Japan's modern experience as seen through visual materials, and the longer historical trajectory of Japanese culture. His books include JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life, coedited with Brett L. Walker (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, 2005); Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (University of California Press, 1999); and Politics and the Kitchen: A History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Akita Prefecture (in Japanese, Domesu, 1986). As of 2015, his latest writing project was "Growing Up with Godzilla: A Global History in Pictures." Pflugfelder received his BA from Harvard (1981), his MA from Waseda (1984), and his PhD from Stanford (1996). He began teaching at Columbia in 1996

Scope and Contents

In the first session of this interview, Greg Pflugfelder explains how he was first inspired to study gender history through the instruction of Barbara Solomon during his undergraduate years at Harvard. He addresses his following years at Waseda University and Stanford University and the continuation of his research on gender history, including the publication of his first book Politics and the Kitchen: A History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Akita Prefecture. Pflugfelder discusses how he began to research sexuality studies and what the intellectual environment was like for the study of queer history at that time. Pflugfelder describes his initial involvement with IRWGS after joining the East Asian Language and Cultures department at Columbia University in 1996, including his contribution of a focus on queer and sexuality studies to the Institute. In the second session of this interview, Pflugfelder explains his role in IRWGS's Executive Committee and his role as a male scholar within the Institute. He also explains how he, along with Lila Abu-Lughod, helped contribute to IRWGS's shift from a primarily Western perspective to a global one. Pflugfelder goes on to address the unique interdisciplinary space IRWGS is on Columbia's campus and its importance as both an intellectual and social community

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Gay and lesbian studies--United States.
• Interdisciplinary approach in education.
• Interviews.
• Juravich, Nicholas, interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Pflugfelder, Gregory M., 1959---Interviews.
• Women--Suffrage--Japan--Akita-ken--History.

Access Conditions

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