Oral history interview with Mario DiGangi, 2015

Biographical Note

Mario DiGangi is a professor of early modern English literature at the CUNY Graduate Center and Lehmann College, where he has taught since 1998. He was present for a many of the major shifts in attitudes towards gender at Columbia: as an undergraduate (1984-1988), he was in the second graduating class to include female students, he was attending Columbia when IRWAG was established. During his PhD studies at Columbia (1988-1994) he was heavily involved with the Gay and Lesbian Studies Reading Group, which found its initial support through IRWAG. His research deals with early modern English theater and the history of sexuality. After graduating from Columbia in 1994, he taught at Indiana University before moving on to Lehmann College in 1998

Scope and Contents

Mario DiGangi begins this interview by discussing his decision to attend Columbia University, stating that he began to engage with New York City's LGBTQ subculture as a high school student. DiGangi describes initial exposure to gay studies and feminist theory in an undergraduate class with Professor John Archer. From there, DiGangi attended an IRWGS course co-taught by Jean Howard and Martha Howell. As a graduate student at Columbia, the field of sexuality and LGBTQ studies was expanding, and DiGangi and others sought a space to address it. Out of this need arose the Lesbian and Gay Studies Reading Group. With immense support and encouragement, the Lesbian and Gay Studies Reading Group accrued speakers ranging from Martin Duberman, the first director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY Graduate School, to theorists and critics such as Eve Sedgwick, Wayne Koestenbaum, Douglas Crimp, and Judith Butler. DiGangi describes the ways in which the Lesbian and Gay Studies Reading Group became a legitimate institution within the Columbia community, and the resources it provided to queer students navigating the academy. DiGangi discusses how, in 1995, he helped to organize a conference on activism and academia, and defended a gay student dismissed from the PhD program

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Crow, Andrea, interviewer.
• DiGangi, Mario--Interviews.
• Feminist theory.
• Gay and lesbian studies--United States.
• Gay students.
• Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

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