PROGRAMS OF STUDY

FACULTY

COURSES

PROJECTS

EVENTS

RESOURCES

Courses
		Introduction
		Spring 2010 Courses
		Fall 2009 Courses
		Spring 2009 Courses
		Fall 2008 Courses
		Spring 2008 Courses
		Fall 2007 Courses
		Spring 2007 Courses
		Fall 2006 Courses
		Spring 2006 Courses
		Fall 2005 Courses
		Course Guide

Fall 2007 Courses

View Printable Version

Please stop by the office for our Fall 2007 course guide or click here to download a pdf version.

WMST Courses
Crosslisted Courses
Gender Related Courses in Other Departments

V1001 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies.

A. Kessler-Harris & N. Tadiar

Call#02215
T 10:35-11:50am, with discussion section R 10:35-11:50am, 323 Milbank Hall

3pts. Starting with the lives and experiences of women in the West, historical, comparative and global perspectives are incorporated to introduce the commonalities and differences that mark women's lives. Also, investigates how gender intersects with such categories as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and religion.

V3111 Feminist Texts I: Wollstonecraft to Beauvoir.

L. Ciolkowski

Call#41700
T 2:10-4pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension

4pts. The important contributions to the elaboration of feminist thought in the West, evaluated through critical discussion. Analysis of works by Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, Anna Cooper, Radclyffe Hall, C. P. Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen, and others in an attempt to discover the roots of the contemporary feminist movement. Permission of instructor required. Enrollment limited to 20 students.

V3311 Colloquium in Feminist Theory: The Global and the Intimate

V. Rosner

Call#72996
W 2:10-4pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension

4pts. Each year, the Colloquium in Feminist Theory explores a different theme in contemporary feminist and gender theory. In Fall 2007, this course seeks to bridge the diverse disciplinary commitments of feminist theory through an organizing focus on location and scale. Beginning with what Adrienne Rich calls "the geography closest in - the body," we will expand outwards to the home and urban spaces, to the real and imaginary boundaries of nationality and citizenship, and finally, to emerging transnational feminist paradigms. We will consider the varied theoretical constructs that inform theories of gender in literary studies, cultural studies, architecture, geography, biology, urban planning, philosophy, and more. Theoretical questions that will preoccupy us throughout the course include: the relationship between gender and the built environment, the unstable distinction between "sex" and "gender," the politics of international and intercultural feminist alliances, and the spatial contexts of social theory and social change. We will explore these questions as we discuss topics including: sex work, intersexuality, international security, gender and urban space, and imperial domesticity. Priority given to majors and concentrators in Women's and Gender Studies. Limited to 20. Prerequisite: Feminist Texts I, or II, and permission of the instructor.

V3521 Senior Seminar.

J. Crawford

Call#63202
M 2:10-4pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension

4pts. Seminar for the preparation of the senior thesis for Columbia Women’s and Gender Studies majors. Individual research in women’s and gender Studies conducted in consultation with the instructor.

G4000 Genealogies of Feminism: Feminist Theories of the State.

E. Bernstein

Call# 05986
R 11am-12:50pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension

3pts. What is the state, and why does it matter for feminist critique? This course interrogates the various analyses of the state that have been developed by successive generations of feminist thinkers, while also delving into the implicit theories of the state that have been employed byfeminist scholars working in the fields of sociology, jurisprudence, political theory, anthropology, and history. Throughout this course, our readings and discussions will be guided by several overlapping questions: How is the state created by, and how does the state itself create relations of gender? What role does the state play in shaping other gendered institutions, such as sexuality and the family? What do particular models of the state imply for strategies of feminist action? We begin with a consideration of some early exemplars of liberal and socialist feminist thinking, exploring both rights-based and materialist notions of the state and prescriptions for women’s equality. Next, we consider radical feminist critiques of the ways in which a fundamentally masculinist understanding of the state goes uninterrogated in liberal and socialist theory. Following this, we grapple with the contributions of critical race, postcolonial and poststructuralist feminists, whose writings pose potent challenges to the models of citizenship, belonging, identity, power, and freedom expressed by prior feminist work. In the final section of the course, we shall strive to develop a feminist analytics of the post-industrial security state, considering the gendered underpinnings and implications of phenomena such as globalization, militarization and surveillance. Although our readings will focus primarily upon European and North American materials, students are encouraged to consider a broad range of cases in both class discussions and their final papers.

G6001 Theoretical Paradigms in Feminist Thought: Meanings of Motherhood.

A. Kessler-Harris & C. Sanger

Call#56253
T 4:10-6pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension

3pts. This course will explore the shifting and contested meanings of motherhood as individual experience and in its institutional context at different historical moments and in contemporary United States. The materials focus on the complex relationships between motherhood and such topics as work, citizenship, sexuality, poverty, reproductive technologies, and the fetus itself. We will also look at categories of mothers (birth mothers, grandmothers, immigrant mothers, unwed mothers, welfare mothers, slave mothers, to name a few). Materials will be drawn from historical sources, legal text, and selected fictional works. The course is open to ten law students and ten graduate students selected on the basis of written statements of interest. Please do not register until your application has been approved.

Crosslisted Courses

82110 Philosophy and Feminism.

C. Mercer

Call#59695
T 1:10-2:25pm, 517 Philosophy Hall

3pts. Same as PHIL 2110 V. Is there an essential difference between women and men? How do questions about race conflict or overlap with those about gender? Is there a "normal" way of being "queer"? This course is an introduction to philosophy and feminism through a critical discussion of these and other questions using historical and contemporary texts, art, and public lectures. Focus includes essentialism, difference, identity, knowledge, objectivity, and queerness.

82500 Women and Music.

R. Rosenberg

Call#12552
TR 4:10-5:25pm, 715 Hamilton Hall

3pts. Same as MUSI 2500 V. In this course students will gain a better understanding of the function and significance of the female voice in several different cultural and historical contexts. Each week, students will complete the reading assignment listed on the syllabus. When appropriate, listening examples to accompany readings will be made available online or in the library’s listening center. In certain weeks, students will be required to submit a 3-4-paragraph position paper. This paper should summarize the key points from the reading and class discussion, as well as draw connections to previous course material. When it is time to choose a topic for the final project, these position papers will indicate areas of particular interest. Final papers will be between 10-15 pages in length, properly footnoted and drawing on the course’s major theoretical concepts. This paper will be presented to the class in the final two weeks of the semester.

83803 Gender and Empire.

A. Rao

Call#05161
MW 2:40-3:55pm, 307 Milbank Hall

3pts. Same as HIST 3803 X. This seminar explores how scholarship in gender and sexuality articulates with studies of empire, colonialism, and anti-colonial nationalism. Focusing in particular on the regions of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia the seminar focuses on the convergences between gendered identities, the reconfiguration of sex and the family, and religious and cultural formations as they took shape during the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. The seminar will investigate how those experiences have structured the politics and histories of non-Western feminisms in these regions up to the present. This graduate seminar fulfills one of the requirements of the Graduate Certificate in Feminist Studies. Preferred pre-requisite: A graduate course in history, anthropology, gender studies, or one of the regions covered (Middle East, South Asia, Africa).

88360 Gender, Sexuality, Music: Theory, History and Criticism.

E. Hisama

Call#58352
R 1:10-3:00pm, 701A Dodge Hall

3pts. Same as MUSI 8360 G. This seminar explores questions of gender and sexuality raised in literary works and sociological and historical studies of the Maghreb. The course is conducted in English with readings and films in French and English (including Arabic works in translation). Areas of study include: representations of women and sexuality in colonial literature and photography; transnationalism in gender and feminist studies; gender in the Algerian War of Independence; gender, language, and sexuality in Maghrebi literature; gender and migration.

88615 Gender and Sexuality in the Maghreb.

M. Dobie

Call#17704
W 2:10-4:00pm, 507 Philosophy Hall

3pts. Same as CLFR 8615 G. This seminar explores questions of gender and sexuality raised in literary works and sociological and historical studies of the Maghreb. The course is conducted in English with readings and films in French and English (including Arabic works in translation). Areas of study include: representations of women and sexuality in colonial literature and photography; transnationalism in gender and feminist studies; gender in the Algerian War of Independence; gender, language, and sexuality in Maghrebi literature; gender and migration.

Gender Related Courses in Other Departments

For more information about these courses, including day/time, professor, and description, please look in our course guide.

American Studies

BC3450 Women and Leadership.

Anthropology

V3064 Death and the Body.
V3465 Women & Gender in the Muslim World.
V3978 Dialogic Imagination in Opera.
G4220 The Social Production of Technologies.
G6250 Women of Letters - Culture, Society & Self-Representation.

Classics

V3158 Women in Antiquity.

English & Comparative Literature

BC3195 Modernism.
BC3997 Sec. 2: Senior Seminar: Reading and Writing Women in Colonial America W3966 Literature, Culture, and War In The 20th C.
W4501 Embattled Modernism.
G6510 Feminist Texts: Latina Feminist Theory.
G6568 Double Identities & Border Crossings.

Ethnicity & Race

W1010 Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies.
W3918 Transnational Transgender Social Formations: Political Economies and Health Disparities.
W3922 Asian American Cinema.

Film

BC3201 Introduction to Film and Film Theory.

First Year Seminar

BC1164 Women and Culture I.
BC1332 Women and Culture II.
BC1436 Families, Feminisms & States.

French & Romance Philology

W3505 Cultural Diversity in Contemporary France.
G8615 Gender & Sexuality in The Maghreb.

History

W3026 Roman Social History.
W3107 Family, Sexuality and Marriage in Premodern Europe.
BC3305 Bodies and Machines 1750-1939.
BC3413 United States 1940-1975.
BC3803 Gender & Empire.
BC4905 Capitalism, Colonialism, and Culture: A Global History.

Italian

G4390 Gender & Literary Identity: The Experience of Italian Women Writers 1870-1930.

Law

L6506 Gender Justice.
L8152 Reproductive Health & Human Rights.
L8158 Seminar: Perspectives On Family and Gender.
L9153 Seminar: Topics in Law and Sexuality.
L9232 Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.