Oral history interview with Laura E. Ciolkowski, 2015

Biographical Note

Laura Ciolkowski is has been the Associate Director of IRWGS as well as the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference since 2007-2008. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, as well as a writer and book critic whose reviews appear in the NY Times, et al. She has taught at Yale, Wesleyan, NYU, Barnard and Columbia and her teaching and research interests include women's studies, nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and culture, and travel literature. She was in the second cohort of women admitted to Columbia College in 1984 and had a positive experience with the Core Curriculum.

Scope and Contents

Ciolkowski begins this three session interview by discussing her undergraduate years at Columbia University as part of one of the first co-ed graduating classes. She describes the attitudes on campus and the relationship between Barnard College and Columbia. While Ciolkowski cites an internship with Kate Wittenberg before college as her first introduction to feminist figures and politics, she names Anne McClintock as a crucial mentor in her early experience with feminist scholarship. Through McClintock, Ciolkowski engaged with New York Women Against Rape (NYWAR). Ciolkowski discusses the decision to pursue a graduate degree in English, her development at Brown University, her subsequent experience as a faculty member of Yale's Women's Studies Department, and her decision to move back to NYC and leave the academy. Here, Ciolkowski describes her experience freelance writing, speech writing, and researching for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. Ciolkowski describes her time at Wesleyan University and New York University's Gallatin School, and her ultimate return to Columbia. Ciolkowski discusses the challenges of childrearing while in the academy, the collaborative nature of IRWGS and the Barnard Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies department, and the benefits of her position as an administrator within IRWGS. Ciolkowski then focuses on her experience collaborating with Barnard College and the Center for the Study of Social Difference. Ciolkowski describes the early projects of the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD), including those by Farah Griffin and Claudio Lomnitz. Ciolkowski discusses how CSSD allows IRWGS scholars to go beyond gender as their primary category of analysis. Finally, she reflects on the work IRWGS has done with No Red Tape, an anti-sexual violence group on campus, and the unique position of IRWGS on campus.

Subjects

• Barnard College.
• Center for Reproductive Law & Policy.
• Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University.
• Ciolkowski, Laura--Interviews.
• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University--Interviews--Alumni and alumnae.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Dziedzic, Sarah, interviewer.
• Feminist theory.
• Interviews.
• Motherhood.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Women's studies.

Access Conditions

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