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The Institute for Research on Women and Gender is the locus of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship and teaching at Columbia University. Offering an undergraduate degree program in Women’s and Gender Studies, as well as honors and special concentrations, and graduate certification in Feminist Scholarship, the Institute draws its faculty from all disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and provides rigorous training in interdisciplinary practice. Courses survey the history and theory of gender studies, preparing students for professional work or further academic engagement in the field.
The degree in Women’s and Gender Studies at Columbia College, taught in cooperation with Barnard College’s Women’s Studies Department, provides students with a culturally and historically situated, theoretically diverse understanding of feminist scholarship and its contributions to the disciplines. The program is intended to introduce students to the long arc of feminist discourse about the cultural and historical representation of nature, power, and the social construction of difference. It encourages them to engage the debates regarding the ethical and political issues of equality and justice that emerge in such discussions. And it links the questions of gender and sexuality to those of racial, ethnic, and other kinds of hierarchical difference. Through sequentially organized courses in women’s and gender studies, as well as required discipline-based courses in the humanities, social sciences and history, the degree provides a thoroughly interdisciplinary framework, methodological training and substantive guidance in specialized areas of research. Small classes and mentored thesis writing give students an education that is both comprehensive and tailored to individual needs. The major degree culminates in a two-semester thesis-writing class, in which students undertake original research and produce advanced scholarship. Graduates leave the program well-prepared for future scholarly work in women’s and gender studies, but the degree also prepares students for careers and future training in law, public policy, social work, community organizing, journalism, medicine, and all those professions in which there is a need for critical and creative interdisciplinary thought.
The graduate program provides courses in feminist theory, inquiry, and method for students enrolled in departmental doctoral programs and in the professional schools. Students are welcome to take one or more of these courses, which challenge disciplinary perspectives and offer inclusionary frameworks of analysis, as desired. Students who wish to achieve certification in feminist scholarship should follow the guidelines below. Certification testifies to mastery of a body of cross-disciplinary literature and enhances employability, especially in Women’s Studies and related programs.
The Women’s and Gender Studies office is located, along with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, at 763 Schermerhorn Extension. All inquiries concerning Women’s and Gender Studies should be addressed to the Women’s and Gender Studies Undergraduate and Graduate Directors, Julie Crawford and Lila Abu-Lughod.
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