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
WMST1006X001Format
In-PersonPoints
3 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Mo 08:40-09:55We 08:40-09:55Section/Call Number
001/00192Enrollment
44 of 70Discussion Section
Course Number
WMST1007X001Points
0 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 08:40-09:55Section/Call Number
001/00807Enrollment
0 of 35Instructor
Samuel DavisDiscussion Section
Course Number
WMST1007X002Points
0 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 11:00-12:00Section/Call Number
002/00835Enrollment
1 of 15Instructor
Samuel DavisThis 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 2024
Times/Location
Mo 14:10-16:00Section/Call Number
001/00135Enrollment
35 of 35Instructor
Alexander PittmanEnrollment for this class is by instructor approval and an application is required. Please fill out the form here:
This 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 2024
Times/Location
Tu 10:10-11:25Th 10:10-11:25Section/Call Number
001/00022Enrollment
31 of 35Instructor
Manijeh MoradianN/A
Course Number
WMST2151X001Points
0 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Th 10:10-11:25Section/Call Number
001/00573Enrollment
0 of 15N/A
Course Number
WMST2151X002Points
0 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Th 10:10-11:25Section/Call Number
002/00574Enrollment
0 of 16The Holocaust is one of the most researched horrors of the Modern past. Yet, the study of queer and trans Holocaust histories is relatively new. This upper-level course covers the key analytics that the Holocaust has generated within the historical discipline, but from the position of queer and trans scholarship. It attends to the varying and uneven experiences of queer and trans people under Nazism, but equally fronts new methods and conclusions about the Holocaust, state and individual violence, social hygiene practices, the role of sex within society, identity formations, and the relationship of the present to the past.
Course Number
WMST3152C001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Mo 12:10-14:00Section/Call Number
001/15077Enrollment
15 of 18Instructor
Zavier NunnPrerequisites: LIMITED TO 20 BY INSTRUC PERM; ATTEND FIRST CLASS
This course provides a theoretical itinerary to the emergence of contemporary queer theory and engagement with some contemporary legacies of the movement. The goal is not to be exhaustive nor to establish a correct history of queer theory but to engage students in the task of understanding and creating intellectual genealogies.
Course Number
WMST3311V001Points
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Tu 12:10-14:00Section/Call Number
001/00575Enrollment
18 of 18Instructor
Rebecca Jordan-YoungCourse Number
WMST3504X001Points
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Mo 16:10-18:00Section/Call Number
001/00595Enrollment
24 of 24Instructor
Sandra Moyano-ArizaCourse Number
WMST3521V001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 12:10-14:00Section/Call Number
001/11745Enrollment
8 of 10Instructor
Jack HalberstamStudent-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 2024
Times/Location
Th 12:10-14:00Section/Call Number
001/00576Enrollment
16 of 20Instructor
Manijeh MoradianStudent-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
WMST3525V002Points
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 16:10-18:00Section/Call Number
002/00836Enrollment
2 of 8Instructor
Jacqueline OrrPrerequisites: 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 2024
Section/Call Number
001/18468Enrollment
0 of 20Instructor
Christelle TaraudSamantha CsengeThis course considers formations of gender, sexuality, and power as they circulate transnationally, as well as transnational feminist and queer movements that have emerged to address contemporary gendered and sexual inequalities. Topics include political economy, global care chains, sexuality, sex work and trafficking, feminist and queer politics, and human rights. If it is a small world after all, how do forces of globalization shape and redefine the relationship between gender, sexuality, and powerful institutions like the state? And, if power swirls everywhere, how are transnational power dynamics reinscribed in gendered bodies? How is the body represented in discussions of nationalism and in the political economy of globalization? These questions will frame this course by highlighting how gender, sexuality, and power coalesce to impact the lives of individuals in various spaces including workplaces, the academy, the home, religious institutions, the government, and civil society, and human rights organizations. This course will enable us to think transnationally, historically, and dynamically, using gender and sexuality as lenses through which to critique relations of power and the ways that power informs our everyday lives and subjectivities.
Course Number
WMST3915W001Format
In-PersonPoints
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 14:10-16:00Section/Call Number
001/13512Enrollment
15 of 18Instructor
Tara GonsalvesGenealogies 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 2024
Times/Location
Tu 10:10-12:00Section/Call Number
001/11746Enrollment
13 of 18Instructor
Julia Bryan-WilsonCourse Number
WMST4308W001Points
4 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
We 10:10-12:00Section/Call Number
001/00594Enrollment
18 of 18Instructor
Rebecca Jordan-YoungEarly publications in Yiddish, a.k.a. the mame loshn, ‘mother tongue,’ were addressed to “women and men who are like women,” while famous Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem, created a myth of “three founding fathers” of modern Yiddish literature, which eliminated the existence of Yiddish women writers. As these examples indicate, gender has played a significant role in Yiddish literary power dynamics. This course will explore representation of gender and sexuality in modern Yiddish literature and film in works created by Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, Fradl Shtok, Sh. An-sky, Malka Lee, Anna Margolin, Celia Dropkin, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kadya Molodowsky, Troim Katz Handler, and Irena Klepfisz. You will also acquire skills in academic research and digital presentation of the findings as part of the Mapping Yiddish New York project that is being created at Columbia. No knowledge of Yiddish required.