Law and Society in Colonial India
Law & Society / Colonial
This course explores the relationship between law and society in colonial India. It features cases relating to marriage and divorce, property and inheritance, sedition and criminal conspiracy woven through the lives of ordinary people in nineteenth and twentieth century India. Through a range of materials, we will explore how British colonial officials reformulated what “law” was and how it was to be interpreted. We will also explore how these interpretations were understood and challenged. We will encounter judges, lawyers, and notaries that mediated the relationship between law and society, courts, and litigants, while catching a fascinating glimpse of what arguments, evidence, and sentencing looked like in these courts. As we go through our readings and attend classes, we might ask: how does this perspective from India shape our understanding of the relationship between law and colonialism, and what are its contemporary implications?
- Department: History
- T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Kalyani Ramnath
Info - 4 points
SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR
A year-long course for outstanding senior majors who want to conduct research in primary sources on a topic of their choice in any aspect of history, and to write a senior thesis possibly leading toward departmental honors.
Approved application through the History Department is required to join this seminar.
- Department: History
- R 10:10 a.m.-noon
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
- R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Tunc Sen
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Instructor:
James Stafford
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Instructor:
Michael F Stanislawski
CULPA: 66 Wikipedia Info - 4 points
Seminar on Law and Psychology
Psychology and Law Semina
This seminar explores how psychological theory and research—particularly from social, cognitive, and developmental psychology—can illuminate, inform, and challenge legal institutions, practices, norms, and debates. The course examines how people think about, interact with, and are affected by the legal system in roles such as defendants, jurors, judges, lawyers, and citizens. Topics include legal decision-making, responsibility and intent, bias and discrimination, forensic assessment, mental illness and legal capacity, eyewitness testimony, interrogations and false confessions, punishment, and stigma.
We will consider how psychological insights help explain how the law operates in practice and critically assess how legal policies align with—or diverge from—psychological evidence. While grounded in psychological science, the course also draws on interdisciplinary work from law and legal scholarship, sociology, public health, and neuroscience. We will read empirical studies and legal analyses that address psychological issues relevant to the law. The principal goal is to understand the legal system not only as a body of rules, but as a human institution shaped by cognitive, emotional, and social dynamics.
Over the course of the semester we will (1) analyze how core concepts in psychology apply to legal contexts; (2) assess psychological studies by examining the strength of their research design and considering their implications for legal concepts and practices; (3) examine how developmental, cognitive, and affective processes affect legal decision-making; (4) identify and critique the use of psychological evidence in courts and policy debates; and (5) explore how neuroscience is reshaping legal understandings of responsibility, culpability, and sentencing, while critically examining its ethical and evidentiary limitations.
- Department: Psychology
- T 8:10 p.m.-10 p.m.
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Instructor:
Michael J Naft
Info - 4 points
HUMAN RIGHTS & PUBLIC HEALTH
Prerequisites: Enrollment in the course is open to 18 undergraduates who have completed at least one core course in human rights and /or international law. This seminar introduces students to the field of health and human rights. It examines how to advocate for and implement public health strategies using a human rights framework. It takes note of current international and domestic debates about the utility of a ;human rights-based approach; to health, discusses methods and ethics of health-related human rights research, and examines case studies of human rights investigations to explore the role of human rights analysis in promoting public health.
- Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
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Instructor:
Faculty
h-index: 37 Info - 4 points
ANTHROP OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
This course focuses on the political ecology of the Anthropocene. As multiple publics become increasingly aware of the extensive and accelerated rate of current global environmental change, and the presence of anthropogenesis in ever expanding circumstances, we need to critically analyze the categories of thought and action being developed in order to carefully approach this change. Our concern is thus not so much the Anthropocene as an immutable fact, inevitable event, or definitive period of time (significant though these are), but rather for the political, social, and intellectual consequences of this important idea. Thus we seek to understand the creativity of The Anthropocene as a political, rhetorical, and social category. We also aim to examine the networks of capital and power that have given rise to the current state of planetary change, the strategies for ameliorating those changes, and how these are simultaneously implicated in the rhetorical creation of The Anthropocene.
- Department: Anthropology @Barnard
- W 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
Paige West
CULPA: 41
h-index: 23
Info
- 4 points
ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELD RESEARCH IN NYC
This course provides the aspiring anthropologist with an array of primarily qualitative methodological tools essential to successful urban fieldwork. As such, it is a practicum of sorts, where regular field assignments help build one’s ability to record and analyze social behavior by drawing on several key data collection techniques. Because we have the luxury of inhabiting a large, densely populated, international city, this class requires that you take a head-first plunge into urban anthropology. The NYC area will define the laboratory for individually- designed research projects. Be forewarned, however! Ethnographic engagement involves efforts to detect social patterns, but it is often a self-reflexive exercise, too. Readings provide methodological, analytical, and personal insights into the skills, joys, and trials that define successful field research.
- Department: Anthropology @Barnard
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Kaya N Williams
Info - 4 points
SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR I
Prerequisites: Limited to Barnard Anthropology Seniors. Offered every Fall. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors.
- Department: Anthropology @Barnard
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
- 4 points
ECOCRITICISM FOR THE END TIMES
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. This seminar aims to show what an anthropologically informed, ecocritical cultural studies can offer in this moment of intensifying ecological calamity. The course will not only engage significant works in anthropology, ecocriticism, philosophy, literature, politics, and aesthetics to think about the environment, it will also bring these works into engaged reflection on living in the end times (borrowing cultural critic Slavoj Zizeks phrase). The seminar will thus locate critical perspectives on the environment within the contemporary worldwide ecological crisis, emphasizing the ethnographic realities of global warming, debates on nuclear power and energy, and the place of nature. Drawing on the professors long experience in Japan and current research on the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, the seminar will also take care to unpack the notion of end times, with its apocalyptic implications, through close considerations of works that take on the question of ecocatastrophe in our times. North American and European perspectives, as well as international ones (particularly ones drawn from East Asia), will give the course a global reach.
- Department: Anthropology
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Marilyn Ivy
CULPA: 11
Wikipedia
Info
- 4 points
SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR
Computer Science majors at Barnard can choose to pursue a year-long senior research thesis for their senior experience. A senior thesis is intended to be a substantial piece of work in which the student engages in independent and original research. They should register for two semesters of research projects in CS through their faculty advisor’s home department (Barnard or Columbia), each for at least 3 credits (one in Fall and one in the Spring). They should additionally register for this course. The main goal is to provide students with a venue to discuss their senior thesis projects with each other. In the seminar, students learn how to communicate and present their work. They also become more familiar with other students’ areas of research and other types of research projects that fall under the umbrella of computer science. The seminar sometimes also features guest speakers in various areas of CS; students participate and engage in discussion with the speaker, further developing their research communication skills. The instructor of this course functions as a secondary advisor for the students’ projects. At the end of the academic year, the students present their projects to the CS community at Barnard.
- Department: Computer Science @Barnard
- W noon-1:50 p.m.
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Instructor:
Tiffany Tseng
Info - 1 points
INTRO TO CLASSICAL RHETORIC
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. (Seminar). This course examines rhetorical theory from its roots in ancient Greece and Rome and reanimates the great debates about language that emerged in times of national expansion and cultural upheaval. We will situate the texts of Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others in their historical contexts to illuminate ongoing conversations about the role of words and images in the negotiation of persuasion, meaning making, and the formation of the public. In the process, we will discover that the arguments of classical rhetoric play out all around us today. Readings from thinkers like Judith Butler, Richard McKeon, Robert Pirsig, and Bruno Latour echo the ancients in their debates about hate speech regulation, the purpose of higher education, and the ability of the sciences to arrive at truth. We will discover that rhetoricians who are writing during eras of unprecedented expansion of democracies, colonization, and empire have a great deal to say about the workings of language in our globalizing, digitizing age. Application instructions: E-mail Professor Sue Mendelsohn (sem2181@columbia.edu) by April 11 with the subject heading Rhetoric seminar. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course. Admitted students should register for the course; they will automatically be placed on a wait list, from which the instructor will in due course admit them as spaces become available.
- Department: English and Comparative Literature
- R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Susan Mendelsohn
CULPA: 5
h-index: 3
Info
- 4 points
READING ITALIANS - PRECEPT
The purpose of this precept is to read short selections of the readings for this course in the original Italian, closely comparing these texts with their English counterparts. Attention will be paid to stylistic, syntactical, and grammatical characteristics of both languages, carefully considering questions of tone, register, cadence, idiomatic expressions, archaisms, and other elements of the translator’s task. In addition to discussing the readings, we will work in class on translating specific passages from Italian into English. Depending on the makeup of the class, the discussions will take place either fully in Italian or in a mix of Italian and English.
- Department: English @Barnard
- W 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jhumpa Lahiri
Wikipedia Info - 1 points
Research Training
Research training course. Recommended in preparation for laboratory related research.
- Department: Biomedical Engineering
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Instructor:
Gerard A Ateshian
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Instructor:
Tal Danino
Wikipedia h-index: 18 Info -
Instructor:
X. Edward Guo
CULPA: 2 h-index: 70 Info -
Instructor:
Henry Hess
CULPA: 1 h-index: 45 Info -
Instructor:
Clark T Hung
CULPA: 5 h-index: 65 Info -
Instructor:
Lance Kam
CULPA: 7
h-index: 38
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Instructor:
Andrew Laine
Wikipedia h-index: 43 Info -
Instructor:
Elisa Konofagou
Wikipedia h-index: 71 Info -
Instructor:
Kam W Leong
h-index: 126 Info -
Instructor:
Helen Lu
CULPA: 1 h-index: 54 Info -
Instructor:
Barclay Morrison
CULPA: 9 h-index: 42 Info -
Instructor:
Elizabeth Olson
h-index: 28 Info -
Instructor:
Paul Sajda
CULPA: 3 h-index: 47 Info -
Instructor:
Samuel Sia
CULPA: 1 h-index: 39 Info -
Instructor:
Stavros Thomopoulos
h-index: 63 Info -
Instructor:
John T Vaughan
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Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
Wikipedia h-index: 132 Info -
Instructor:
Qi Wang
h-index: 24 Info -
Instructor:
Nandan L Nerurkar
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Instructor:
Stephen H Tsang
Wikipedia h-index: 58 Info -
Instructor:
Elham Azizi
h-index: 10 Info -
Instructor:
Jose McFaline-Figueroa
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Instructor:
Treena L Arinzeh
Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Sanja Vickovic
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Instructor:
Santiago Correa
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Instructor:
Parisa Yousefpour
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Instructor:
Lauren N Heckelman
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Instructor:
Grace McIlvain
Info - 0 points
DADA AND SURREALISM
- Department: Comparative Literature and Society @Barnard
- M 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
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Instructor:
Caroline Weber
CULPA: 8
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
READING ITALIANS: HER SIDE OF THE STORY
READING ITALIANS: HER STO
“In Italy, literary fiction has long been considered a man’s game.” So began a
2019 New York Times article discussing the growing international attention being
paid to Italian women writers, particuarly on the heels of Elena Ferrante’s
phenomenal global success. This course will center the female voice and
subjectivity in the Italian literary tradition, with a focus on celebrated prose writers
active from the early twentieth century to the present. Some, recently republished
and reconsidered for the Italian market, have also been re-translated and re-
introduced to a wider English readership. We will trace the reception of female
authors within the Italian critical establishment and abroad, and the role
translation might play in broadening and amplifying their reputation and reach.
We will focus on one author per week, paying special attention to themes of
resistance, rebellion, and self-fashioning. All readings will be in English.
- Department: English @Barnard
- TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jhumpa Lahiri
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
The Art of the Question in Latin America
The Question in Latin Ame
This course investigates the role of the question as a central artistic, political, and epistemological device in Latin American art from the early twentieth century to the present. We will explore how artists have deployed questions not merely as rhetorical devices or titles, but as strategies that shape form, content, and spectatorship—provoking reflection, resistance, and transformation.
Through case studies ranging from Oswald de Andrade’s provocative “Tupy or not Tupy?” (1928) and Marta Minujín’s playful “What types of materials turn you on?” (1968) to Alfredo Jaar’s public survey ¿Es usted feliz? (1981) and Clemencia Lucena’s feminist intervention ¿Qué hacen ellas mientras ellos trabajan? (1970), students will examine the diverse functions of questioning in visual art, performance, literature, and other media. Class discussions will focus on the aesthetic, political, and epistemic implications of questions in art: How do these works shape audience engagement? In what ways do they resist resolution? How do they generate critique, knowledge, or political action? We will also consider transnational and diasporic contexts, exploring how Latin American artists navigate questions across cultural and geographic boundaries.
The course is structured around five modules—Questioning Identity, Questioning the Patriarchy, Questioning Dictatorship, Questioning Spectatorship, and Questioning the Real—that highlight key moments in modern and contemporary Latin American art to uncover how uncertainty and questioning have shaped aesthetic and political imagination.
- Department: Latin American and Iberian Cultures
- MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jeronimo Duarte Riascos
Info - 3 points
AMEC Senior Thesis Seminar
The Senior Thesis Seminar is a one-semester requirement for all Barnard College students majoring in Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures (AMEC). This is a working research seminar devoted to helping students produce a substantive piece of writing that will eventually be part of their senior thesis project, the culmination of their work in the major. Students will participate in the seminar as thesis writers and as peer editors. In addition to working with the instructor in the seminar, students will also consult with a faculty member who specializes in the student's area of interest within the AMEC department.
- Department: Asian and Middle East @Barnard
- M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
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Instructor:
Matthew L Keegan
CULPA: 8 Info - 4 points
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT
Candidates for the B.S. degree may conduct an investigation of some problem in chemical engineering or applied chemistry or carry out a special project under the supervision of the staff. Up to 6 points may be counted toward the technical elective content requirement. (Note that if more than 3 points of research are pursued, an undergraduate thesis is required.)
- Department: Chemical Engineering
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Instructor:
Scott Banta
CULPA: 1 h-index: 36 Info -
Instructor:
Kyle Bishop
h-index: 42 Info -
Instructor:
Christopher M Boyce
h-index: 17 Info -
Instructor:
Juliana Silva Alves Carneiro
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Instructor:
Jingguang Chen
Wikipedia h-index: 89 Info -
Instructor:
Neil D Dolinski
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Instructor:
Christopher J Durning
CULPA: 3 Info -
Instructor:
Daniel Esposito
h-index: 22 Info -
Instructor:
Oleg Gang
h-index: 45 Info -
Instructor:
Jingyue Ju
h-index: 77 Info -
Instructor:
Sanat Kumar
CULPA: 4 h-index: 79 Info -
Instructor:
Lauren E Marbella
Info - 0-6 points
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT
Candidates for the B.S. degree may conduct an investigation of some problem in chemical engineering or applied chemistry or carry out a special project under the supervision of the staff. Up to 6 points may be counted toward the technical elective content requirement. (Note that if more than 3 points of research are pursued, an undergraduate thesis is required.)
- Department: Chemical Engineering
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Instructor:
Lauren E Marbella
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Instructor:
Allie Obermeyer
h-index: 16 Info -
Instructor:
Ben O'Shaughnessy
CULPA: 3 Info -
Instructor:
Mijo Simunovic
CULPA: 1 h-index: 17 Info -
Instructor:
Dan Steingart
CULPA: 1 Wikipedia h-index: 36 Info -
Instructor:
Alexander Urban
h-index: 24 Info -
Instructor:
Venkat Venkatasubramanian
h-index: 58 Info -
Instructor:
Alan West
CULPA: 3 h-index: 48 Info -
Instructor:
Asher Williams
Info - 0-6 points
SENIOR SEMINAR IN FILM STUDIES
A seminar for senior film majors planning to write a research paper in film history/theory/culture. Course content changes yearly.
- Department: Film
- R 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
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Instructor:
Racquel Gates
Info - 3 points
SUPERVISED INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH
Prerequisites: Permission of the departmental representative required. For specially selected students, the opportunity to do a research problem in contemporary physics under the supervision of a faculty member. Each year several juniors are chosen in the spring to carry out such a project beginning in the autumn term. A detailed report on the research is presented by the student when the project is complete.
- Department: Physics
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Instructor:
Jeremy R Dodd
CULPA: 25
Info
- 1-5 points
SUPERVISED INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH
Prerequisites: Permission of the departmental representative required. For specially selected students, the opportunity to do a research problem in contemporary physics under the supervision of a faculty member. Each year several juniors are chosen in the spring to carry out such a project beginning in the autumn term. A detailed report on the research is presented by the student when the project is complete.
- Department: Physics and Astronomy @Barnard
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Instructor:
Timothy J Halpin-Healy
CULPA: 6 Info - 1-5 points
SENIOR THESIS I
Department approval required. See requirements for a major in visual arts. VIAR UN3900 is the prerequisite for VIAR UN3901. Corequisites: VIAR UN3910 (Formerly R3901) Students must enroll in both semesters of the course (VIAR UN3900 and VIAR UN3901). The student is required to produce a significant body of work in which the ideas, method of investigation, and execution are determined by the student. A plan is developed in consultation with the faculty. Seminars; presentations. At the end, an exhibition or other public venue is presented for evaluation. Studio space is provided with a refundable deposit of $150.
- Department: Visual Arts
- W 5:15 p.m.-10 p.m.
- 2 points
SENIOR SEMINAR
SR SEM: ARCHITECTRL CRITICISM
See the Barnard and Columbia Architecture Department's website for the course description:
https://architecture.barnard.edu/architecture-department-course-descriptions
- Department: Architecture @Barnard
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Suzanne Stephens
Info - 4 points
SENIOR HONORS THESIS
Weekly seminar to accompany Senior Honors Thesis Lab (CHEM BC3903). Focus is on scientific presentation and writing skills and research conduct.
- Department: Chemistry @Barnard
- F 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
Jean Vadakkan
Info - 4 points
SENIOR HONORS THESIS
Weekly seminar to accompany Senior Honors Thesis Lab (CHEM BC3903). Focus is on scientific presentation and writing skills and research conduct.
- Department: Chemistry @Barnard
- F 10:10 a.m.-noon
- 4 points
Senior Project Seminar
SENIOR PROJECT SEMINAR
Discussion of senior research projects during the fall and spring terms that culminate in written and oral senior theses. Each project must be supervised by a cognitive scientist working at Barnard or Columbia.
- Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
- T 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
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Instructor:
John Morrison
CULPA: 12 h-index: 7 Info - 1 points
SENIOR SEMINAR
Guided, independent, in-depth research culminating in the senior thesis in the spring. Includes discussion about scientific presentations and posters, data analysis, library research methods and scientific writing. Students review work in progress and share results through oral reports. Weekly seminar to review work in progress and share results through oral and written reports.
- Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- 3 points
SUPERVISED READINGS I
Prerequisites: The written permission of the faculty member who agrees to act as sponsor (sponsorship limited to full-time instructors on the staff list), as well as the permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The written permission must be deposited with the Director of Undergraduate Studies before registration is completed. Guided reading and study in mathematics. A student who wishes to undertake individual study under this program must present a specific project to a member of the staff and secure his or her willingness to act as sponsor. Written reports and periodic conferences with the instructor.
Supervising Readings do NOT count towards major requirements, with the exception of an advanced written approval by the DUS.
- Department: Mathematics @Barnard
- 1-3 points
SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE
Prerequisites: SOCI BC1003 or equivalent social science course and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Drawing examples from popular music, religion, politics, race, and gender, explores the interpretation, production, and reception of cultural texts and meanings. Topics include aesthetic distinction and taste communities, ideology, power, and resistance; the structure and functions of subcultures; popular culture and high culture; and ethnography and interpretation.
- Department: Sociology @Barnard
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Jonathan Rieder
CULPA: 17
Info
- 4 points
UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
An independent theoretical or experimental investigation by an undergraduate major of an appropriate problem in computer science carried out under the supervision of a faculty member. A formal written report is mandatory and an oral presentation may also be required. May be taken over more than one term, in which case the grade is deferred until all 6 points have been completed. Consult the department for section assignment.
- Department: Computer Science
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Instructor:
Alexandr Andoni
CULPA: 2 h-index: 34 Info -
Instructor:
Steven K Feiner
CULPA: 18 Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Kathleen McKeown
CULPA: 8 h-index: 71 Info -
Instructor:
Jason Nieh
CULPA: 23
Wikipedia
h-index: 50
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Instructor:
Itsik Pe'er
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Instructor:
Ansaf Salleb-Aouissi
CULPA: 21 h-index: 16 Info -
Instructor:
Henning G Schulzrinne
CULPA: 12 Info -
Instructor:
Rocco Servedio
CULPA: 15
h-index: 48
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Instructor:
Andrew J Blumberg
h-index: 33 Info -
Instructor:
Junfeng Yang
CULPA: 4 h-index: 33 Info -
Instructor:
Hod Lipson
Wikipedia h-index: 79 Info -
Instructor:
Lydia Chilton
CULPA: 3 h-index: 18 Info -
Instructor:
Brian A Smith
CULPA: 2 h-index: 5 Info -
Instructor:
Ethan Katz-Bassett
h-index: 31 Info -
Instructor:
David A Knowles
h-index: 35 Info -
Instructor:
Asaf Cidon
h-index: 20 Info -
Instructor:
Rebecca N Wright
Wikipedia h-index: 34 Info -
Instructor:
Henry Yuen
CULPA: 1 Info -
Instructor:
Orson Xu
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Instructor:
Brian K Plancher
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Instructor:
Corey Toler-Franklin
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Instructor:
Shalmali Joshi
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Instructor:
Eysa Lee
Info - 1-6 points