Women's and Gender Studies
The Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender (ISSG) is the locus of interdisciplinary feminist and queer scholarship and teaching at Columbia University. Offering an undergraduate degree program and graduate certification in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Institute draws its core and affiliated faculty from a diverse array of disciplines across Columbia University and Barnard College. ISSG provides rigorous training in interdisciplinary scholarly, pedagogical, and activist practice and prepares students for professional work or advanced academic study.
For questions about specific courses, contact the department.
For questions about specific courses, contact the department.
Courses
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course introduces students to key concepts and texts in environmental humanities, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies of race, gender, sexuality, capital, nation, and globalization. The course examines the conceptual foundations that support humanistic analyses of environmental issues, climate crisis, and the ethics of justice and care. In turn, this critical analysis can serve as the basis for responding to the urgency of calls for environmental action.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will learn what difference humanistic studies make to understanding environmental issues and climate crisis. The course will prepare students to:
- Identify humanistic methods and how they contribute to understanding the world;
- Demonstrate critical approaches to reading and representing environments;
- Engage ethical questions related to the environment; and
- Apply concepts from the course to synthesize the student’s use of humanistic approaches to address urgent environmental questions.
Course Number
WMST1006X001Points
3 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Tu 16:10-17:25Th 16:10-17:25Section/Call Number
001/00731Enrollment
64 of 70Instructor
Janet JakobsenThis course examines the conceptual foundations that support feminist and queer analyses of racial capitalism, security and incarceration, the politics of life and health, and colonial and postcolonial studies, among others. Open to all students; required for the major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and the Interdisciplinary Concentration or Minor in Race and Ethnicity (ICORE/MORE).
Course Number
WMST2140X001Points
3 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Tu 12:40-13:50Th 12:40-13:50Section/Call Number
001/00730Enrollment
58 of 70Instructor
Marisa SolomonThis introductory course for the Interdisciplinary Concentration or Minor in Race and Ethnicity (ICORE/MORE) is open to all students. We focus on the critical study of social difference as an interdisciplinary practice, using texts with diverse modes of argumentation and evidence to analyze social differences as fundamentally entangled and co-produced. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this course, the professor will frequently be joined by other faculty from the Consortium for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (CCIS), who bring distinct disciplinary and subject matter expertise. Some keywords for this course include hybridity, diaspora, borderlands, migration, and intersectionality.
Course Number
WMST2150X001Points
3 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Mo 16:10-17:25We 16:10-17:25Section/Call Number
001/00729Enrollment
75 of 90Instructor
Sarah OhmerCourse Number
WMST3125W001Format
In-PersonPoints
3 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Mo 14:40-15:55We 14:40-15:55Section/Call Number
001/11622Enrollment
67 of 80Instructor
Jack HalberstamPrerequisites: Enrollment limited to 18 students. History and politics of womens involvement with science. Womens contributions to scientific discovery in various fields, accounts by women scientists, engineers, and physicians, issues of science education. Feminist critiques of biological research and of the institution of science.
Course Number
WMST3131X001Points
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Tu 18:10-20:00Section/Call Number
001/00728Enrollment
16 of 20Instructor
Laura KayCourse Number
WMST3132X001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Mo 14:10-16:00Section/Call Number
001/00822Enrollment
19 of 20Instructor
Sandra Moyano-ArizaThis course is designed to provide students with an introduction to key themes in contemporary feminist thought. Attention will be devoted to how the intersections of race, gender, class, nation and sexuality, as well as the politics of deviance, shape feminist theory. This course aims to introduce students to key theoretical contributions of feminist thought. The course emphasizes an understanding of feminist theories through the political, historical and cultural contexts in which they developed. Topics covered will include the production of racialized, gendered, and sexualized bodies through cultural productions, public polices and technology; Marxist feminism; postcolonial feminism; transnational and diasporic practices; politics of representation and queer theory. Prerequisite: Either one introductory WGSS course or Critical Approaches to Social and Cultural Theory or Permission of the Instructor.
Course Number
WMST3311W001Points
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Th 14:10-16:00Section/Call Number
001/00727Enrollment
19 of 17Instructor
Marisa SolomonCourse Number
WMST3521V001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
We 16:10-18:00Section/Call Number
001/11603Enrollment
3 of 10Instructor
Lila Abu-LughodStudent-designed capstone research projects offer practical lessons about how knowledge is produced, the relationship between knowledge and power, and the application of interdisciplinary feminist methodologies.
Course Number
WMST3525V001Points
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Tu 10:10-12:00Section/Call Number
001/00726Enrollment
9 of 20Instructor
Manijeh MoradianFeminist Media Praxis is an advanced research seminar that integrates the theory and production of diverse media forms—from film and video, to photography, the digital, and television. We explore media as well as their associated materials, practices, and embodiments as methods for feminist research, collaboration, and expression. The course interrogates feminist histories, learns from diverse feminist political expressions and activism, and seeks to find, incorporate, and build archives and other records of media research and production.Feminist Media Praxis is an advanced research seminar that integrates the theory and production of diverse media forms—from film and video, to photography, the digital, and television. We explore media as well as their associated materials, practices, and embodiments as methods for feminist research, collaboration, and expression. The course interrogates feminist histories, learns from diverse feminist political expressions and activism, and seeks to find, incorporate, and build archives and other records of media research and production.
Course Number
WMST3535X001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
We 18:10-20:00Section/Call Number
001/00820Enrollment
14 of 18Instructor
Alexandra JuhaszPrerequisites: 5 semesters of college-level French or the equivalent. This course in taught in French.
Eligibility: This course is open to undergraduates, graduate students, and visiting students
Based on an interdisciplinary, intersectional, subalternist and post-colonial approach, this course is a general introduction to the history, sociology and anthropology of the economy of the sex-trade in Africa, America, Asia and Europe from the early nineteenth century to today. It aims to clarify: 1) the historiographical situation by questioning and analyzing the French regulatory system and its many avatars in Europe, the United States and in the colonial world, but also questioning the backlash to this system that consisted firstly of the abolitionist (born in England in the second half of the nineteenth century) and then the prohibitionist movements; 2) The relationship between class, “race” and gender in the sex market via issues of human trafficking and sex tourism in Europe, America, Africa and Asia; 3) The socio-economic issue - and its political connections – in the economy of sex with particular attention to individuals (prostitutes versus sex workers), their voices, their legal status, and even their mobilization (rallies and demonstrations, community collectives and trade unions, political and / or literary publications), but also the many heated debates that these demands for recognition and these mobilizations have provoked in places as diverse as France, the Netherlands and India to take only three specific examples in the world covered in the course.
To enroll in this course, you must apply to the Columbia Summer in Paris Program through the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE). Tuition charges apply; scholarships available.
Please note the program dates are different from the Summer Term B dates.
Course Number
WMST3550H001Format
In-PersonPoints
3 ptsFall 2023
Section/Call Number
001/17790Enrollment
0 of 20Instructor
Christelle TaraudSamantha CsengeGenealogies of Feminism: Course focuses on the development of a particular topic or issue in feminist, queer, and/or WGSS scholarship. Open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates, though priority will be given to students completing the ISSG graduate certificate. Topics differ by semester offered, and are reflected in the course subtitle. For a description of the current offering, please visit the link in the Class Notes.
Course Number
WMST4000G001Points
4 ptsFall 2023
Times/Location
Tu 14:10-16:00Section/Call Number
001/11644Enrollment
16 of 20Instructor
Marianne HirschThis advanced seminar examines important approaches, issues, perspectives, and themes related to planetary concerns of environmental crisis, climate change, life sustainability, and multi-species flourishing, with a focus on feminist, postcolonial, anti-racist, and queer perspectives. Topics for discussion and study include the global pandemic, histories of colonialism, slavery, and capitalism,
Prereqs: BOTH 1 WMST Intro course PLUS any WGSS 'Foundation' course, OR instructor permission.