Biography

Austin E. Quigley was born in Northumbria, near the English border with Scotland. His parents were both schoolteachers and he was the second of their five children. After attending the local grammar school, he earned his Bachelor's degree in English Literature at Nottingham University. He briefly switched disciplines, to earn a Master's degree in Linguistics at Birmingham University, before moving to the United States, in the late 1960s, to earn his doctorate in English and Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Before coming to Columbia in 1990, Dean Quigley taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Virginia, with visiting appointments at the University of Geneva, the University of Konstanz, and the University of Nottingham. His areas of scholarly expertise include modern drama, literary theory, and linguistic theory, and he has written extensively on the work of modern playwrights, particularly Harold Pinter.

Dean Quigley was Chair of the English department at the University of Virginia, he has served on the editorial boards of a variety of scholarly journals, he has been a member of the Program Committee of the Modern Language Association, and, most recently, he has served as President of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.

At Columbia, Dean Quigley, who holds the departmental position of Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature, established the undergraduate major in Drama and Theatre Arts, revived the doctoral program in Theatre, and helped reinvigorate the MFA programs in Theatre in the School of the Arts. He is a member of the Hammerstein Center for Theatre Studies and, before becoming Dean, served as chair of the Lionel Trilling Seminars.

Dean Quigley is married to Patricia Denison, who teaches at Barnard College, and they have four daughters: Laura, Rebecca, Caroline, and Catherine.