Women's and Gender Studies

The Institute for Research on Women and Gender offers courses in feminist texts, women's literature, women's and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, women and art and film, and black women in America.

Director:
Saidiya Hartman
svh2102@columbia.edu

Associate Director:
Laura Ciolkowski
lec30@columbia.edu

Director of Graduate Studies:
Anupama Rao
arao@barnard.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies:
Alondra Nelson
alondra.nelson@columbia.edu

 

Web: www.columbia.edu/cu/irwag

NOTE

Course scheduling is subject to change. Days, times, instructors, class locations, and call numbers are available on the Directory of Classes.

Fall course information begins posting to the Directory of Classes in February; Summer course information begins posting in March; Spring course information begins posting in June. For course information missing from the Directory of Classes after these general dates, please contact the department or program.

Click on course title to see course description and schedule.

 
Unify Course Listings 



  

  
Spring 2013

  
      

        
    
        
              
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    WMST V1001y.
Introduction To Women's and Gender Studies. 3 pts.

    
  
    
    Lecture and discussion. Introduction to the ways in which femininity and
    masculinity have been represented in literature and constructed in culture.
    The new interdisciplinary scholarship on gender analyses is presented in
    works of literature, film, social science, and contemporary theory.
    
     
    
  
    
    
    
      
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        Spring 2013 :: WMST V1001 :: Credit Sections
      
      
         
      
    
    
    
    
      
        WMST
    
        1001
          		
      
        07651
    
        001
          		
      
        TuTh 11:40a - 12:55p
    
        304 BARNARD HALL
    
          		
      
        L. Ciolkowski
    
        R. Young
          		
      
        90 / 90
      
      
        [ More Info ]
      
    
    
  
    

    
     
     
                   
              
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    WMST BC3121y.
Black Women In America. 4 pts.

    
  
    
    An examination of the experiences of African American women from slavery
    through the present. Emphasis will be on the history and historiography of
    these experiences, as well as on critical issues facing African-American
    women today.
    

    
     
    
     
     
              
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    WMST BC3123y.
Women and Art. 3 pts.

    
  
    
    Discussion of the methods necessary to analyze visual images of women in
    their historical, racial, and class contexts, and to understand the status
    of women as producers, patrons, and audiences of art and
    architecture.
    
     
    
     
     
              
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    WMST BC3130y.
Discourses of Desire: Introduction To Gay and Lesbian Studies. 3
pts.

    
  
    
    Who or what constitutes the subject of gay and lesbian studies? Explores
    historical, methodological, and epistemological crisis points of
    essentialism/constructionism; sexuality across cultures; gender versus
    sexuality; bisexuality and the binary regimes of hetero/homo and
    male/female; community; identity; the politics of liberation; the place of
    feminism in les/bi/gay studies.
    

    
     
    
     
     
              
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    WMST BC3134y.
Unheard Voices: African Women's Literature. 4 pts.

    
  Themes include the politics of the canon in Africa, the problems of language,
  postcolonial counter-discourse, the African-American continuum, and Third
  World and Western feminism. Readings include novels, short stories, poetry,
  and drama by Elora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Nawal El Saadawi, Miriam Tlali,
  Bessie Head, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Tess Onwueme.
    

    
     
    
  
    
    
    
      
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        Spring 2013 :: WMST BC3134 :: Credit Sections
      
      
         
      
    
    
    
    
      
        WMST
    
        3134
          		
      
        08742
    
        001
          		
      
        W 11:00a - 12:50p
    
        406 BARNARD HALL
    
          		
      
        Y. Christianse
      
      
        25
      
      
        [ More Info ]
      
    
    
  
    

    
     
     
              
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    WMST V3813y.
Colloquium On Feminist Inquiry. 4 pts.

    
  Prerequisites: WMST V1001 and the instructor's permission. A survey
  of research methods from the social sciences and interpretive models from the
  humanities, inviting students to examine the tension between the production
  and interpretation of data. Students receive firsthand experience practicing
  various research methods and interpretive strategies, while considering
  larger questions about how we know what we know.
    

    
     
    
  
    
    
    
      
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        Spring 2013 :: WMST V3813 :: Credit Sections
      
      
         
      
    
    
    
    
      
        WMST
    
        3813
          		
      
        16996
    
        001
          		
      
        Tu 11:00a - 12:50p
    
        754 EXT SCHERMERHORN HALL
    
          		
      
        E. Povinelli
      
      
        12
      
      
        [ More Info ]
      
    
    
  
    

    
     
     
              
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    WMST G4000y
(Section 001). Genealogies of Feminism: Theories of Intimacy. 4
pts.

    
  
    
  Prerequisites: Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Hirsch
  (mh2349@columbia.edu) by noon on Tuesday, November 6th, with the subject
  heading, "Intimacy seminar." In your message, include basic information: your
  name, school, major or field, year of study, and relevant courses taken,
  along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the
  course.
    
  
    
  
    
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    div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> This course traces the Genealogies of
    Feminism through feminist and  queer preoccupations with intimacy in the
    context of threats to  intimate attachments caused by divisions of social
    difference and  the inequities of power and by institutional, ideological
    and legal  efforts to regulate kinship and affiliation.  We will explore
    key  feminist theoretical work about sites and spaces of intimacy such  as
    love, the family (mother- daughter relationships, sisters, gay  and
    straight marriage and adultery, motherhood, adoption and  abortion), home
    and domesticity, friendship, activist community,  collaboration,
    biopolitics and embodiment, and social networks.
    
     
    
  
    
    
    
      
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        Spring 2013 :: WMST G4000 :: Credit Sections
      
      
         
      
    
    
    
    
      
        WMST
    
        4000
          		
      
        20773
    
        001
          		
      
        Tu 2:10p - 4:00p
    
        754 EXT SCHERMERHORN HALL
    
          		
      
        M. Hirsch
      
      
        20 / 20
      
      
        [ More Info ]
      
    
    
  
    

    
     
     
              
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    WMST G4000y
(Section 002). Genealogies of Feminism: Forms of Life: Culture as Aesthetics,
Experience, Embodiement. 4 pts.

    
  
    
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    div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> This course explores theories of forms
    of life, human and social, which have been seen to develop in the course of
    a global history of contemporary modernity, with an attention to the role
    of aesthetics and affect, communication technology and built form in
    shaping and expressing dominant as well as marginalized and/or alternative
    forms of sociality, subjectivity and collective being and experience. We
    will examine several scholarly literatures that deal with issues of beauty,
    embodiment, sensory experience, pleasure, pain, subjectivity and structures
    of feeling, and their relations to questions of gender and power, social
    order and struggle, and historical change. We will also look at questions
    of biopolitics, violence and the limits and possibilities of different
    humanist and post-humanist conceptions of "life" for understanding politics
    in contemporary contexts. Readings include Marx, Benjamin, Buck-Morss,
    Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Rancière, Esposito, as well as contemporary
    feminist ethnography of Southeast Asia.
    
     
    
  
    
    
    
      
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        Number
          		
      
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        Spring 2013 :: WMST G4000 :: Credit Sections
      
      
         
      
    
    
    
    
      
        WMST
    
        4000
          		
      
        04473
    
        002
          		
      
        M 2:10p - 4:00p
    
        201 LEHMAN HALL
    
          		
      
        N. Tadiar
      
      
        12 / 15
      
      
        [ More Info ]
      
    
    
  
    

    
     
     
    
  





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