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 2024
Times/Location
Mo 08:40-09:55We 08:40-09:55Section/Call Number
001/00192Enrollment
16 of 50This 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 PittmanThis 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
0 of 28Instructor
Manijeh MoradianN/A
Course Number
WMST2151X001Points
0 ptsFall 2024
Times/Location
Th 10:10-11:55Section/Call Number
001/00573Enrollment
2 of 35Instructor
Samuel DavisThe 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
0 of 18Prerequisites: 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
9 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
17 of 20Instructor
Manijeh MoradianThis 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
6 of 18Genealogies 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
4 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.