Oral history interview with Joan Ferrante, 2014

Biographical Note

Joan Ferrante received he B.A. from Barnard in 1958, her M.A. from Columbia in 1959, and her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1963. At Columbia since 1963, Professor Ferrante has also taught at Swarthmore, Fordham, Tulane. She has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and NEH and is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. She has served on the boards of Speculum, Lectura Dantis Americana, and Dante Studies; has served on Executive Councils of the Medieval Academy and MLA, and as President of the Dante Society and the national Phi Beta Kappa Society, and as President of the Medieval Academy. Her field is medieval comparative literature, specializing in Dante, Provencal lyric, medieval allegory and romance, and women in the Middle Ages. She has published many articles and several books, including To the Glory of Her Sex: Women's Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts (1997), The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (1984), The Lais of Marie de France, a translation and commentary written with Robert Hanning (1978), Woman as Image in Medieval Literature (1975), Guillaume d'Orange, Four Twelfth Century Epics (1974), and The Conflict of Love and Honor: The Medieval Tristan Legend (1973). In 2015, she was working on a database on medieval women's letters, called Epistolae, which is available online through the Columbia Interactive

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Ferrante describes the campus environment for female faculty members of Columbia University in the 1960s, including: the student body, the disparities in pay, the challenges of gaining tenure, and common experiences with the administration. She addresses the different viewpoints between male and female scholarship with a focus on the value of the different approaches to research and inquiry that women have. She discusses her work with and relationship to Carolyn Heilbrun, as well as Heilbrun's significant departure from Columbia University. Ferrante characterizes the English department with particular attention to its shifting power dynamics, hiring processes, decisions in granting tenure, and prevalence of an "old boys' network." She shares her experiences with the Columbia University Senate, the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee, the Ad Hoc Committee on Women and, later, her involvement with IRWGS. She lists some goals of these organizations on campus, including: increased availability of childcare, availability of maternity leave, salary equity, stronger policies against sexual harassment, and measures against discrimination in tenure decisions. Ferrante discusses Columbia College's decision to become a co-educational institution and how she argued for Barnard College to remain as a separate institution. Ferrante also addresses her personal scholarship, including the significance of her book Women as Image in Medieval Literature: From the Twelfth Century to Dante, her translation of The Lais of Marie de France, and her shifting focus within the field of medieval studies. Ferrante both looks to the past to share her knowledge of female mentorship throughout history and towards the future as she addresses the work that still needs to be done

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Department of English and Comparative Literature.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Dziedzic, Sarah, interviewer.
• Feminism and higher education--United States.
• Feminist theory.
• Ferrante, Joan M., 1936---Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Middle Ages--Study and teaching.
• Middle Ages--Study and teaching.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Pay equity.
• Women college teachers.
• Women medievalists.

Access Conditions

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