COLL: BUILDING PEACE

How can we build peace in the aftermath of extensive violence? How can international actors help in this process? This colloquium focuses on international peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding efforts in recent conflicts. It covers general concepts, theories, and debates, as well as specific cases of peacebuilding successes and failures. Cross-listed with Human Rights.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Severine Autesserre
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 14 Info
• 4 points

INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMETRICS

Prerequisites: (ECON UN3211 or ECON UN3213) and (MATH UN1201 or MATH UN1207) and STAT UN1201 Modern econometric methods; the general linear statistical model and its extensions; simultaneous equations and the identification problem; time series problems; forecasting methods; extensive practice with the analysis of different types of data.

• Department: Economics
• Instructor: Seyhan Erden
  CULPA: 7 Info
• Instructor: Sebastian Otero
  Info
• Instructor: Thomas Piskula
  Info
• 4 points

PRINTMAKING:DRAWING INTO PRINT

Prerequisites: VIAR UN2420 or VIAR UN2430 note that VIAR UN2430 was formerly R3420. The objective of the course is to provide students with an interdisciplinary link between drawing, photography and printmaking through an integrated studio project. Students will use drawing, printmaking and collage to create a body of work to be presented in a folio format. In the course, students develop and refine their drawing sensibility, and are encouraged to experiment with various forms of non-traditional printmaking. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Tomas Vu Daniel
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

NINETEENTH-CENTURY CRITICISM

This course examines a diverse selection of social and aesthetic responses to the impacts of modernization and industrialization in nineteenth-century Europe. Using works of art criticism, fiction, poetry, and social critique, the seminar will trace the emergence of new understandings of collective and individual experience and their relation to cultural and historical transformations. Readings are drawn from Friedrich Schiller's Letters On Aesthetic Education, Mary Shelley's The Last Man, Thomas Carlyle's "Signs of the Time," poetry and prose by Charles Baudelaire, John Ruskin's writings on art and political economy, Flora Tristan's travel journals, J.-K. Huysmans's Against Nature, essays of Walter Pater, Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and other texts.

• Department: Art History and Archaeology
• Instructor: Jonathan K Crary
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

INTRO TO ECONOMETRICS-DIS

INTRO TO ECONOMETRICS-DISC

Required discussion section for ECON UN3412: Intro to Econometrics

• Department: Economics
• 0 points

STAGE MANAGEMENT

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor, given at first class meeting. This course explores the role of the stage manager and production manager in theatrical production. Students undertake hands-on exercises to develop the practical and collaborative skills essential to working both as a stage manager and production manager--script analysis; production timeline and rehearsal management; technical rehearsal; budgeting; working with directors and designers; working with unions; health and safety codes; house management; box office.

• Department: Theatre @Barnard
• Instructor: Michael Banta
  Info
• 3 points

French in the World: A Linguistic Survey

French: Linguistic Survey

This course examines French from a linguistic perspective: the historical development of the language, as well as important phonetic, phonological, and sociolinguistic aspects of varieties of French from around the world. The course is intended for undergraduates in French, as well as students in linguistics, and is open to students across the Columbia community.

• Department: French
• Instructor: Eric T Matheis
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

Mechanics of Solids for Mechanical Engin

Introduction to the mechanics of solids with an emphasis on mechanical engineering applications. Stress tensor, principal stresses, maximum shear stress, stress equilibrium, infinitesimal strain tensor, Hooke’s law, boundary conditions. Introduction to the finite element method for stress analysis. Static failure theories, safety factors, fatigue failure.  Assignments include finite element stress analyses using university-provided commercial software.

• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• Instructor: Kristin Myers
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 25 Info
• 3 points

PRIVACY IN A NETWORKED WORLD

The ubiquity of computers and networks in business, government, recreation, and almost all aspects of daily life has led to a proliferation of online sensitive data: data that, if used improperly, can harm the data subjects. As a result, concern about the use, ownership, control, privacy, and accuracy of these data has become a top priority. This seminar course focuses on both the technical challenges of handling sensitive data, the privacy implications of various technologies, and the policy and legal issues facing data subjects, data owners, and data users.

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Rebecca N Wright
  Wikipedia h-index: 34 Info
• 4 points

ENG DES-CONCPT/DESIGN GENERATN

A preliminary design for an original project is a prerequisite for the capstone design course. Will focus on the steps required for generating a preliminary design concept. Included will be a brainstorming concept generation phase, a literature search, incorporation of multiple constraints, adherence to appropriate engineering codes and standards, and the production of a layout drawing of the proposed capstone design project in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software package. Note: MECE students only.

• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• Instructor: Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy
  h-index: 7 Info
• 3 points

PRINTMAKING II: INTAGLIO

Prerequisites: VIAR UN2420 (Formerly R3402) Continues instruction and demonstration of further techniques in intaglio. Encourages students to think visually more in the character of the medium, and personal development is stressed. Individual and group critiques. Portfolio required at end. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Jennifer Nuss
  Info
• 3 points

MISINFORMATION, JUSTICE & DESIGN

MISINFO, JUSTICE & DESIGN

In this course, we work together to understand and address the challenges of misinformation, disinformation, and strategic manipulation in online environments. Students develop a deep understanding of the problem space from an information and social justice perspective by reading and discussing research—both historical and contemporary—on how and why misinformation and disinformation spread. Alongside this, we explore the process, both personal and interpersonal, by which these issues can be approached and addressed in our own lives. This will involve reflecting on our own presuppositions, beliefs, and biases about information; and doing a project in which we apply the principles of Human-Centered Design to investigate different design directions for addressing misleading information. Through this, students gain important contextual knowledge and hands-on design experience that they can take into future professional domains (from education to policy to technology), where they can contribute to building more trustworthy information systems.

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Ahmer Arif
  Info
• 4 points

RUSSIAN FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS

Prerequisites: RUSS V3430 or the instructor's permission. This course is designed to help students who speak Russian at home, but have no or limited reading and writing skills to develop literary skills in Russian. THIS COURSE, TAKEN WITH RUSS V3431, MEET A TWO YEAR FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. Conducted in Russian.

• Department: Slavic Languages
• Instructor: Alla Smyslova
  CULPA: 20 Info
• 3 points

PRINTMAKING II: RELIEF

Prerequisites: VIAR UN2430 (Formerly R3412) Printmaking II: Relief continues instruction and demonstration of further techniques in woodcut. Encourages students to think visually more in the character of the medium, and personal development is stressed. Individual and group critiques. Portfolio required at end. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Nathan N Catlin
  Info
• 3 points

LANGUAGE & REVOLUTION

Prerequisites: Third-year bridge course (W3300), and introductory surveys (W3349, W3350). Kants Enlightenment motto, sapere aude, took on political significance for Spanish American revolutionaries who made their case in prose, pushing against the constraints of the essay. This course traces the genres evolution from the transatlantic debate over political independence to the exuberant declarations of intellectual independence that would follow.

• Department: Spanish and Latin American Culture
• Instructor: Ronald D Briggs
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL

INTRO TO AMERICAN CON LAW

This course will introduce students to basic concepts in American Constitutional Law - including the history and development of the U.S. Constitution, theories and practice of constitutional interpetation, and the historical context of major controversies of the Supreme Court. Students will develop the intellectual ability to read case law, properly conceptualize and analyze constitutional issues, and will foster an informed perspective on the nature and limits of constitutional decision making. Class will spend particular attention on the development of civil rights and civil liberties.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Jonathan J Keller
  Info
• 3 points

PRINTMAKING II:SILKSCREEN

Prerequisites: VIAR R2440. (Formerly R3414) Printmaking II: Silkscreen continues instruction and demonstration of further techniques in silkscreen. Encourages students to think visually more in the character of the medium, and personal development is stressed. Individual and group critiques. Portfolio required at end. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• 3 points

Animals as Spectacle

What does it mean to look at an animal on display and to consider what that experience means for the
animal who endures it? This course examines how animals are spectacularized through entertainment economies—the circus, zoo, marine park, bullfighting ring, rodeo arena, and trophy-hunting safari—and their anthropocentric regimes. Working across critical animal, performance, and multispecies studies, archival sources, legal documents, and films (Blackfish, dir. Cowperthwaite, 2013; Afternoon of Solitude, dir. Serra, 2024; Le Havre, dir. Kaurismäki, 2011), we move from analyses of animal display toward sanctuary ethics, animal legal advocacy, and interspecies justice. Requirements include active seminar participation, periodic collection and informal presentation of documentary material, a formal in-class presentation on assigned course material, and individual research essay. FY students are welcome.

• Department: Comparative Literature and Society @Barnard
• Instructor: Hana Worthen
  Info
• 4 points

Evolution of Intelligence, Animal Commun

Prerequisites: PSYC UN1001, and the instructors permission.

A systematic review of the evolution language covering the theory of evolution, conditioning theory, animal communication, ape language experiments, infant cognition, preverbal antecedents of language and contemporary theories of language.

• Department: Psychology
• Instructor: Herbert S Terrace
  CULPA: 29 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

NEIGHBORHOOD & COMMUNITY DVLP

New York City is made up of more than 400 neighborhoods. The concept of neighborhoods in cities has had many meanings and understandings over time. Equally complex is the concept of community used to describe the people attached to or defined by neighborhood. While neighborhood can be interpreted as a spatial, social, political, racial, ethnic, or even, economic unit; community often refers to the group of stakeholders (i.e. residents, workers, investors) whose interests directly align with the conditions of their environment. Community development is “a process where these community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems” that result from the changing contexts in their neighborhoods. Using a variety of theories and approaches, residents organize themselves or work with community development practitioners on the ground to obtain safe, affordable housing, improve the public realm, build wealth, get heard politically, develop human capital, and connect to metropolitan labor and housing markets. To address the ever-changing contexts of neighborhoods, community development organizations are taking on new roles and adapting (in various cases) to larger forces within the city, region and nation such as disinvestment, reinvestment, increased cultural diversity, an uncertain macroeconomic environment, and changes in federal policy. For more than a century, city-dwellers—and especially New Yorkers—have been tackling these challenges. This course will examine both historic and contemporary community building and development efforts, paying special attention to approaches which were shaped by New York City. This urban center, often described as a “city of neighborhoods,” has long been a seedbed for community-based problem-solving inventions. The course will focus on the theories (why?), tools (how?), and actors (who?) within the field of community development practice and is organized around important sectors (housing, econom

• Department: Urban Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Mary Rocco
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

IMMIGRANT NEW YORK

For centuries, New York City has served as a primary gateway city for immigrants to the United States.  In the early twentieth century, according to the 1910 Census, New York City’s population was roughly 40% foreign-born.  The problems these immigrants presented to government officials, doctors, religious leaders, industrialists, the police, and educators in New York City transformed not only the local debate on immigration but the national discussion of “Americanization” as well.  According to the most recent census, approximately 40% of the city's population is foreign-born.  Like their predecessors at the turn of the twentieth century, contemporary immigrants, arriving from the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, Asia, and Europe, have posed serious challenges to the civic, educational, and political institutions of New York City.  How are these foreign-born residents reshaping the city today?  This seminar explores the intersection of immigration, race, culture, and politics in New York City, both from the perspective of history and in relation to contemporary realities as it explores the forces shaping the century-old encounter between immigrants and New York City.

• Department: History
• Instructor: Rebecca Kobrin
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 4 points

KOREAN FILM AND MEDIA

This course places film in relation to a variety of other media forms, including architecture, art, music/sound technology, and printed texts. While not losing sight of the ways in which media (and ideas about media) circulate regionally and globally, this class will pay particular attention to the history of media in Korea from the colonial period (1910-1945) forward.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• Instructor: Theodore Hughes
  CULPA: 6 Info
• 4 points

Field Work & Research Seminar: Toddler C

FLDWRK-RSRCH SEM-BAR TOD CNTR

This is a two-semester course. Those interested in applying for Fall 2026-Spring 2027 should email 
toddlercenter@barnard.edu
 to sign up for information sessions and receive details on the application process. PSYC BC2129 Developmental Psychology (with or without PSYC BC2128 lab) is a prerequisite, as well as permission of the instructor.

This advanced course in developmental psychology integrates theory, research, and practice at the Barnard Toddler Center,  a state-of-the-art center serving 18-36 month old children and their families. Students in the course participate as student teachers alongside an experienced staff one morning per week. Everybody gathers in a weekly seminar to discuss the intellectual concepts and research that help explain toddler behavior and the center's educational practices. In the fall semester, the focus is on developing a skillful practice when working with children and understanding the foundations of toddler development using current science and psychological theories. In the spring semester, student teaching continues, and the class carries out new research projects at the center, guided by the instructor, on topics such as the emerging concept of self, language and cognition, social interactions, emotional development, spatial and physical exploration, and parenting philosophies.

• Department: Psychology @Barnard
• Instructor: Anna Shusterman
  Info
• 4 points

Top-Down Effects on Perception

For much of the history of neuroscience, perception was viewed as a rigidly hierarchical process. A bottom-up network beginning with the transduction of different sensory modalities into action potentials, relay distribution through the thalamus and finally cortical processing from early sensory areas to the frontal lobe.  Once thought to fully explain perception, evidence from the last few decades suggests that is an incomplete view. Expectation, attention, memories, tasks and emotions can affect perception and sensory processing even in early cortical stages. These top-down effects suggest that the subjective reality each one of us experience is not determined solely by the shapes of objects, frequency of air vibrations or structure of odorant molecules. Reality is built at the intersection between the physical attributes of the world and  our brains’ internal processes.

• Department: Psychology
• Instructor: Tiago Altavini
  Info
• 3 points

The Modern Woman Genius in Paris & New Y

Mod.Woman Genius Paris/NY

How have women turned combinations of creatives roles into artistic success?  At once daughters, fashion icons, models, mothers, muses, painters, print-makers, sisters, sculptors, and wives, great women artists have brilliantly understood the conditions of creativity in their times. This seminar studies how Impressionist Paris launched the modern woman artist, then traces a history of women’s tactics through mid-twentieth century New York Abstract Expressionism.  The seminar takes advantage of: a major 2026 exhibition about Mary Cassatt at the Musée d’Orsay; a burst of 2025-26 scholarship about the women Impressionists; 2025 and 2026 exhibitions about Ruth Asawa and Frida Kahlo; a major 2026 exhibition about Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the creative ecologies of two cultural capitals: Paris and New York.

• Department: Art History and Archaeology
• Instructor: Anne Higonnet
  CULPA: 31 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

POST 9/11 IMMIGRATION POLICIES

Since September 11, 2001, there has been an avalanche of immigration enforcement policies and initiatives proposed or implemented under the guise of national security. This course will analyze the domino effect of the Patriot Act, the Absconder Initiative, Special Registration, the Real I.D. Act, border security including the building of the 700-mile fence along the U.S./Mexico border, Secured Communities Act-that requires the cooperation of state and local authorities in immigration enforcement, the challenge to birthright citizenship, and now the congressional hearings on Islamic radicalization. Have these policies been effective in combating the war on terrorism and promoting national security? Who stands to benefit from these enforcement strategies? Do immigrant communities feel safer in the U.S.? How have states joined the federal bandwagon of immigration enforcement or created solutions to an inflexible, broken immigration system?

• Department: Ethnicity and Race, Center for
• Instructor: Elizabeth Ouyang
  CULPA: 8 Info
• 4 points

BRAZILIAN SOCIETY & CIV (ENG)

Each week, a historical period is studied in connection to a particular theme of ongoing cultural expression. While diverse elements of popular culture are included, fiction is privileged as a source of cultural commentary. Students are expected to assimilate the background information but are also encouraged to develop their own perspective and interest, whether in the social sciences, the humanities (including the fine arts), or other areas.

• Department: Latin American and Iberian Cultures
• Instructor: Joao Nemi Neto
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 3 points

Gene-Environment Interactions & Epigenet

Gene-Env Interaction & Ep

The aim of this course is to examine the biological bases of individual differences in behavior. We will start by examining how individual differences in behavior and health are shaped by gene-environment interactions. We will complement these studies with the endophenotype approach and discuss its role in our contemporary views of complex disorders. We will then introduce behavioral epigenetics studies that are suggested to mediate the effects of gene-environment interactions at different levels of analysis. We will continue by discussing how these topics shape and are shaped by developmental programming. We will end the semester by discussing the major debates around these topics as well as their implications in real life and public policies. By covering these topics, students are expected to gain a better understanding of how our behavior is i) formed and shaped by gene-environment interactions over time, ii) influenced by the underlying physiological and epigenetic mechanisms, and iii) changed by developmental processes. With this information, the students are expected to view individual differences in behavior in a perspective that is highly interdisciplinary and dynamic.

• Department: Psychology
• Instructor: Elif A Duman
  Info
• 4 points

INDEP BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Prerequisites: Intro Bio I & II. Students who have not taken Intro Bio are encouraged to register for BIOL UN2600. Concurrent with registering for this course, a student must register with the department and provide a written invitation from a mentor; details of this procedure are available at https://biology.columbia.edu/content/biol-un3500-independent-biological-research. Students must register for recitations UN3510 or consult the instructor. Corequisites: BIOL UN3510.

Independent Biological Research is an opportunity for full-time undergraduates in the College, SEAS and GS interested in laboratory research to share in the work of an ongoing research program in our Department or in a comparable laboratory elsewhere in the region. Projects should address a specific biological problem. Clinical projects are not allowed. While most projects are laboratory-based, computational projects that address specific biological issues are allowed.

• Department: Biological Sciences
• Instructor: Ron M Prywes
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 2-4 points

SUPERVISED READINGS IN PHYSICS

Prerequisites: the written permission of the faculty member who agrees to act as supervisor, and the director of undergraduate studies permission. Readings in a selected field of physics under the supervision of a faculty member. Written reports and periodic conferences with the instructor.

• Department: Physics
• Instructor: Jeremy R Dodd
  CULPA: 25 Info
• 3 points

COLL:POLIT ECON:CORRPTN/CONTRL

Prerequisites: POLS V1501 or the equivalent. Admission by application through the Barnard department only. Enrollment limited to 16 students. Barnard syllabus. Comparative political economy course which addresses some important questions concerning corruption and its control: the concept, causes, patterns, consequences, and control of corruption. Introduces students to and engages them in several key social science debates on the causes and effects of political corruption.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Xiaobo Lu
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

Intro to Moving Image: Video, Film & Art

Intro Moving Image:Video,

Intro to Moving Image: Video, Film & Art is an introductory class on the production and editing of digital video. Designed as an intensive hands-on production/post-production workshop, the apprehension of technical and aesthetic skills in shooting, sound and editing will be emphasized. Assignments are developed to allow students to deepen their familiarity with the language of the moving image medium. Over the course of the term, the class will explore the language and syntax of the moving image, including fiction, documentary and experimental approaches. Importance will be placed on the decision making behind the production of a work; why it was conceived of, shot, and edited in a certain way. Class time will be divided between technical workshops, viewing and discussing films and videos by independent producers/artists and discussing and critiquing students projects. Readings will be assigned on technical, aesthetic and theoretical issues. Only one section offered per semester. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Sable Smith
  Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

Animation

Unlike any other medium, animation provides unmatched suspicion of disbelief. Moreover, one can exercise one's imagination in digital space beyond material and physical limitations. Combining the two provides the permissive space to manifest our wildest reveries: utopias, dystopias, thought experiments, psi-fic scenarios, or dollhouses for amphibians.

In this course, students will receive a general survey on a range of methods in animation production. From the most traditional hand-drawn animation and cel animation to digital animation employing Photoshop, After Effects, and Blender (3D animation). Although this class can be technically involved; software mastery the end goal of the course is using these techniques to produce animations as a means of expression. These are only tools to help students form and realize their creative visions. Designed for both the digitally inclined and those who hate computers, students can try and then choose the method most agreeable to their temperament and ideas. They can also combine and mix different methods, maximizing creative freedom.

The course will introduce projects from animation history (early experimental animation, Disney, Soviet experimental animation, etc.) and contemporary art examples (Pierre Huyghe, Ian Chang, Wong Ping. etc.). However, the aim is to go beyond the Western art canon and expose students to other facets of culture. We will also study examples from popular culture (music videos) and Japanese anime (Hideaki Anno, Satoshi Kon, Masaaki Yuasa, etc.). One of the most essential responsibilities the students will take on is expanding our collective references by bringing in and presenting works that genuinely inspire and interest them.

Animation is an exceptionally permissive medium; it facilitates all of your prior skills and interests. Whether it is drawing, painting, music, poetry, fiction, or using a yoyo, there is a way for it to exist in animation. Students will be asked to keep a sketchbook for the duration of the semester. It will serve a landing pad for ideas and an anchor point to manage the project. The course will cover the entire production process, from idea development, concept design, character design, writing, storyboarding, foley, voice, music, editing, and final publication. Much of the class time will be dedicated to working, punctured by presentations, technical workshops, and critiques. At the end of the semester, students will have completed three shorts (30 seconds-2 minutes) and one fully developed pr

• Department: Visual Arts
• Instructor: Yi Fan Jiang
  Info
• 3 points

GENDERED CONTROVERSIES

Love and sex have long been studied as historical constructs influenced by social, political, and economic dimensions. This course aims to expand this discourse by incorporating the often-overlooked lens of technological mediation. Beginning with the premise that romantic love is deeply shaped by the affordances of the technology of the time, a critical awareness of technological mediation in romance –especially of digital technologies, i.e. online dating, social media, or cybersex— allows for a deeper understanding of how social categories such as gender, race, class, ability, or sexuality are technologically-mediated, thereby informing our societal and cultural perceptions of love, dating, and sex. 

 

Sandra Moyano-Ariza is Term Assistant Professor of WGSS and Research Director at BCRW. Her research works at the intersection of pop culture, philosophy, and digital technologies, with interests in the fields of media studies and digital scholarship, contemporary feminist theory, critical race theory, posthumanism, and affect theory.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Sandra Moyano-Ariza
  Info
• 4 points

INDEP BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH - REC

• Department: Biological Sciences
• Instructor: Ron M Prywes
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 0 points

INDEP BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH - REC

• Department: Biological Sciences
• Instructor: Ron M Prywes
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 0 points

INDEP BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH - REC

• Department: Biological Sciences
• Instructor: Ron M Prywes
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 0 points

INDEP BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH - REC

• Department: Biological Sciences
• Instructor: Ron M Prywes
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 0 points

POLITICS OF ILLICIT ECONOMIES IN THE AME

ILLICIT ECON IN THE AMERI

A major challenge for governments across the Western Hemisphere is the complex relationship between illicit economies, violence, and politics. We can see this relationship operating at multiple levels, from everyday politics in gang-controlled neighborhoods where drugs are trafficked to the Amazon where illegal extraction of natural resources poses significant threats to the environment at the local and global levels. Today, the dynamics and consequences of the politics of illicit economies touch all our lives in different ways, including individual and family struggles with substance abuse, everyday encounters with militarized police, environmental degradation, state corruption, and the strains on democracy and citizenship, among many others. This course will examine some of these dynamics and consequences with a theoretical and empirical focus mainly on the Western Hemisphere. Throughout our time together we will connect these pressing issues to broader theories, concepts and empirical findings in political science.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Eduardo Moncada
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 12 Info
• 3 points

HIST APPROACHES FEMINIST QUES

Comparative study of gender, race, and sexuality through specific historical, socio-cultural contexts in which these systems of power have operated. With a focus on social contexts of slavery, colonialism, and modern capitalism for the elaboration of sex-gender categories and systems across historical time.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Lisa Duggan
  Info
• 4 points

Comparative Ethnic Politics

This course will explore the politics of ethnicity and ethnic identity using the frameworks, methodologies, and approaches of the political science subfield of comparative politics. Ethnicity—and identity politics more broadly—is enormously important in understanding domestic politics in most countries around the world. While most people would acknowledge that they themselves have an ethnic identity, few would say that they purposefully chose that identity. Compared to other identity categories, ethnicity is assigned at birth without consent or consultation, and is generally thought to be beyond any one individual’s capacity to change it. Yet almost no one would say that this somewhat random assignment procedure makes ethnicity irrelevant. Not only are many people very eager to organize the political world around ethnic identities, but people also derive a sense of meaning and attachment to others as a result of their ethnicity. With the global rise in ethnonationalist populism in many places, this influence is becoming even more pronounced.

This class will explore how and why this specific type of identity has come to hold such enormous importance for the lives of so many people. At an individual level, we will ask where ethnic identities come from, and why ethnic identities at some times take on primary importance for an individual’s sense of self, while at others become less important than other identities such as religion, interest, class, social values, etc. At the group level, we will examine when ethnic identities become politicized, when ethnic communities organize politically into political parties or interest groups, and which groups get representation in the seats of political power and which do not. At the broadest societal level, we will examine how those ethnic identities influence regime type (whether democratic or authoritarian), political party systems, economic development, inequality, and stability.

While it will be helpful to have completed Introduction to Comparative Politics (POLS UN2501), it is not absolutely required to take this class. Please also note that this class is not the same as Ethnic Conflict (POLS UN 3622). While there will inevitably be some overlap between this class and that, this course focuses much more on domestic politics, ethnicity and non-violent democratic processes, and ethnicity in the politics of regime change.

1

• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Benjamin P McClelland
  Info
• 3 points

COLUMBIA UNI & SLAVERY

In this course, students will write original, independent papers of around 25 pages, based on research in both primary and secondary sources, on an aspect of the relationship between Columbia College and its colonial predecessor Kings College, with the institution of slavery.

• Department: History
• Instructor: Karl Jacoby
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 8 Info
• 4 points

STUDIES IN U.S. IMPERIALISM

Historical, comparative study of the cultural effects and social experiences of U.S. imperialism, with attention to race, gender and sexuality in practices of domination and struggle.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Neferti Tadiar
  CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

New Yiddish Literature

Modern Yiddish literature, which experienced its cultural peak in the 1920s and 1930s, has entered a  new phase in its history. Over the past decade, an unprecedented wave of Yiddish literature translations  into English has significantly expanded access to this distinct minority culture. Until recently, only a small  fraction of Yiddish literary production was available in translation—estimates are than less than five  percent of Yiddish literary output has been translated into English and other languages. The recent surge in  translations is reshaping our understanding of Ashkenazic cultural heritage and invites a reconfiguration  of the established literary canons. 

This course surveys recent translations from Yiddish literature, including prose, drama, poetry and  satirical sketches, focusing on both previously canonized authors and understudied works by women who were excluded from traditional literary canons. Through close reading and discussion, we will consider how  these works engage with the modern human condition and the Jewish experience in particular, and how 

relevant they are in the twenty-first century. Employing a comparative gender approach as analytical lenses,  we will explore questions of identity, cultural memory, trauma, and most importantly, the ways in which  modernity negotiates its relationship with the past. The course puts emphasis on developing skills in  critical, analytical, and abstract thinking in relation to the discussed works, as well as the ability to articulate  that critical thinking in writing.  

This course is part of the digital humanities project
Mapping Yiddish New York
, which focuses on  building an online archive as a way of meaningful engagement with the past and exploring the cultural  history of New York City. As part of the course, students will conduct archival research and interview with  contemporary Yiddish writers and translators in order to create encyclopedia-style entries for publication  on the
Mapping Yiddish New York
website. No knowledge of Yiddish required; all texts will be taught in  English translation.

• Department: Germanic Languages
• Instructor: Agnieszka Legutko
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 3 points

GLOBAL LITERATURES IN ENGLISH

The title of this course suggests that there are literatures across the “globe” written in English, and that we will study them. But this statement rests on a series of assumptions: the
a priori
existence of a globe with latitudes, longitudes, and borders; a singular category of “literature” produced in different geographical locations across the globe; and finally, that these literatures are written in English. During the course of the semester, we will investigate and (occasionally overturn) all three of these assumptions. 

In order to do so, we will read across different literary genres (short stories and novels, plays, poetry, and essays), while also reading texts that move between these genres or defy them altogether. We will read texts that were originally written in English, as well as texts that have been translated into English, and we will learn and discuss the term “global anglophone” along with the ways in which this term has been challenged. During our collective readings and discussions, we will map the locations that arise in each text
and
the locations out of which these texts arise. We will study the relationship between literature, translation, and mapping, and we will learn and discuss the concept of planetary thinking and writing as an alternative to border and global thinking.

• Department: English @Barnard
• Instructor: Atefeh Akbari Shahmirzadi
  Info
• 3 points

CIVIL RIGHTS &CIVIL LIBERTIES

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or the equivalent. Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC3326. Enrollment limited to 25 students; L-course sign-up through eBear. Barnard syllabus. Explores seminal caselaw to inform contemporary civil rights and civil liberties jurisprudence and policy. Specifically, the readings examine historical and contemporary first amendment values, including freedom of speech and the press, economic liberties, takings law, discrimination based on race, gender, class and sexual preference, affirmative action, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, the right to die, criminal procedure and adjudication, the rights of the criminally accused post-9/11 and the death penalty. (Cross-listed by the American Studies and Human Rights Programs.)

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Paula A Franzese
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

SENIOR SEMINAR I

The Senior Seminar in Women's Studies offers you the opportunity to develop a capstone research paper by the end of the first semester of your senior year. Senior seminar essays take the form of a 25-page paper based on original research and characterized by an interdisciplinary approach to the study of women, sexuality, and/or gender. You must work with an individual advisor who has expertise in the area of your thesis and who can advise you on the specifics of method and content. Your grade for the semester will be determined by the instructor and the advisor. Students receiving a grade of B+ or higher in Senior Seminar I will be invited to register for Senior Seminar II by the Instructor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Senior Seminar II students will complete a senior thesis of 40-60 pages. Please note, the seminar is restricted to Columbia College and GS senior majors.

• Department: Women's and Gender Studies
• Instructor: Lila Abu-Lughod
  CULPA: 17 Wikipedia h-index: 48 Info
• 4 points

Senior Seminar I (Barnard)

SENIOR SEMINAR I

Student-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.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Manijeh Moradian
  Info
• Instructor: Janet Jakobsen
  CULPA: 6 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

ADVANCED SENIOR STUDIO I

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 15 students. Permission of the instructor. An interpretive study of the theoretical and critical issues in visual art. Projects that are modeled after major movements in contemporary art will be executed in the studio. Each student develops an original body of artwork and participates in group discussions of the assigned readings. For further info visit: 
https://arthistory.barnard.edu/senior-thesis-project-art-history-and-visual-arts-majors

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• Instructor: Jozefina Chetko
  Info
• 4 points

Women, Culture, Activism & Gender in Lat

Activism & Gender in Lati

The course focuses on women, culture, and activism in contemporary Latin America through the discussion of manifestos, essays, visual works, films, literature, blogs, music, and new cultural experiences. We will approach two main demands of women on the streets: claims against violence (“femicidios”) and the expansion of rights.

Students will be introduced to theoretical writing on Latin American feminisms in different contexts (mainly Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico, Chile, Peru). This course will provide students with an accurate understanding of some of the topics of contemporary Latin American feminism and activism related to new subjectivities, politics, and culture. The course develops a wide range of cultural practices and includes topics as practices of resistance, representation of violence, gender as spectacle, and new phenomena such as urban protests. We will also trace a relevant genealogy of women struggles in Latin America. The class will be conducted in Spanish and all written assignments will also be in that language.

• Department: Latin American and Iberian Cultures
• Instructor: Graciela Montaldo
  Info
• 3 points

AUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY

With longstanding democracies in Europe and the US faltering, autocratic regimes in Russia and China consolidating, and hybrid regimes that mix elements of democracy and autocracy on the rise, scholars, policymakers, and citizens are re-evaluating the causes and consequences of different forms of government.  This course is designed to give students the tools to understand these trends in global politics. Among other topics, we will explore: How do democracies and autocracies differ in theory and in practice?  Why are some countries autocratic? Why are some democratic? What are the roots of democratic erosion?  How does economic inequality influence a country’s form of government? Is the current period of institutional foment different past periods of global instability?  This course will help students keep up with rapidly unfolding events, but is designed primarily to help them develop tools for interpreting and understanding the current condition of democracy and autocracy in the world.

• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Timothy M Frye
  CULPA: 8 Wikipedia h-index: 31 Info
• 3 points

COMIC BOOK METROPOLIS: HOW NEW YORK CITY

This course explores how New York City didn't just host the American comics industry—it shaped what comics looked like, how they were sold, and what stories they told. We'll trace how the city's newspapers, newsstands, subway cars, tenement buildings, and even its crime waves left their mark on the page. We'll move chronologically from the 1890s to today, looking at moments when the city and the comics it produced were tightly linked: early newspaper strips born in the era of “yellow journalism”; the Golden Age publishers clustered in Midtown offices; the censorship battles of the 1950s; underground cartoonists working out of East Village apartments in the ’60s and ’70s; and the rise of graphic novels in bookstores and museums. Along the way, we'll ask: Why did superhero comics look the way they did? How did economic pressures shape page layout? What happens when the same city produces both blockbuster superhero titles and experimental art magazines?

Readings range from early Sunday pages (the Yellow Kid, Winsor McCay) through Will Eisner’s 
A Contract with God
and Frank Miller’s 
Daredevil
 and 
The Dark Knight Returns
, to Art Spiegelman’s 
RAW
 magazine, Ben Katchor’s urban wanderings, Roz Chast’s 
New Yorker
 cartoons, and contemporary mainstream works like 
Hawkeye
’s “Pizza Dog” issue. Famously, Eisner drew on his Bronx childhood to create 
A Contract with God
, while Miller’s work channels the gritty, anxious New York of the late 1970s and early ’80s. But we’ll look at the full range of what the city made possible, from newspaper syndicates to underground comix to today’s independent publishers.

You’ll learn to read comics closely by analyzing how panel grids, gutters, shadows, and perspectives work and by connecting those choices to the real-world conditions in which they were made. Optional Saturday field trips include Newspaper Row/City Hall Park (early press and Sunday pages), an East Village Underground walk (
East Village Other
/
Gothic Blimp Works
sites), and a visit to the Society of Illustrators/MoCCA (exhibition and archives orientation).

Course assignments combine analytical writing, archival engagement, and original digital scholarship. In addition to two short close-reading essays, there is a final project that takes the form of

• Department: English @Barnard
• Instructor: Benjamin M Breyer
  CULPA: 13 Info
• 3 points

COLL: CONSTRUCTING AND DECONSTRUCTING ST

COLL: CONST&DECONSTR STAT

Why do some countries develop well-functioning states capable of providing security and public services to their citizens while others do not? Why do some develop a strong sense of national identity and unity, while others are plagued by ethnic and communal divisions? How do the structure and strength of the state shape the development of national and other identities, and how do those identities in turn shape the state? This course examines these and related questions from historical and comparative perspectives, drawing on cases from different world regions in both the past and the present.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Sheri Berman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: None Info
• 4 points

JUNIOR SEMINAR IN URBAN STUDIES

JUNIOR SEMINAR URBAN STUD

Prerequisites: Non-majors admitted by permission of instructor. Students must attend first class. Enrollment limited to 16 students per section. Introduction to the historical process and social consequences of urban growth, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present.

• Department: Urban Studies @Barnard
• Instructor: Nick R Smith
  h-index: None Info
• Instructor: Mary Rocco
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

QUEER HARLEM

This course explores representations of queer Harlem in African American literature, sonic culture, and performance. We will consider the history and making of Harlem, key figures of the Harlem Renaissance, and the aesthetic innovations of writers and artists who defied the racial, sexual, and gendered conventions of their time. We will be guided by an intersectional approach to the study of race, gender, and sexuality and the methods of Black queer studies, African American and African diaspora literary studies, as well as sound and performance scholarship. We will ask when, where, and what was/is gay Harlem; how we might excavate its histories; map its borders; and speculate on its material and imagined futures.

• Department: Africana Studies (AFSB)
• Instructor: Maleda Belilgne
  Info
• 4 points

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Philosophical problems within science and about the nature of scientific knowledge in the 17th-20th centuries. Sample problems: causation and scientific explanation; induction and real kinds; verification and falsification; models, analogies and simulations; the historical origins of the modern sciences; scientific revolutions; reductionism and supervenience; differences between physics, biology and the social sciences; the nature of life; cultural evolution; human nature; philosophical issues in cosmology.

• Department: Philosophy
• Instructor: David Albert
  CULPA: 32 Wikipedia h-index: 40 Info
• 3 points

TOURISM&NATL ID-CONTEMP SPAIN

This course focuses on tourism in Spain by local and international travelers as a means for the construction and commodification of national identities both for external and internal audiences. Tourism gives the nation a performative quality not only to attract the gaze of visitors/consumers but also to validate its own unity and coherence as political and symbolic entity for its own citizens. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Spain occupied an ambiguous place in the mind of European and American visitors, a sort of an-other within, an Orientalized or anachronistic incursion in the south of Europe. It was the most marginal and exotic destination of the
Grand Tour
where only the most adventurous travelers chose to go, often instead of Greece, a threshold of Africa instead of the origins of Western Civilization.

After losing its American colonies in the 19th century, Spain sought to
replace
its lost economic and political power
with
cultural influence. It aimed to be the
threshold
through which Europe and Latin America engaged with one another. Key figures of Latin American
modernismo
such as Rubén Darío, José Martí or Gutiérrez Nájera traveled to Spain establishing a systematic dialogue between the former colonial power and the rising influence of the United States.

The arrival of consumer society in the 50’s and 60’s and the accessibility of travel and holidays for the middle classes, progressively turned Spaniards themselves into consumers of their own identity. In that context, the performance of the exotic “difference” that still made the nation marketable and attracted international interest and capital was simultaneous with a progressive assimilation of modern ideas and habits that threatened to erase that very same “difference”. At the same time, both conservative and progressive discourses reacted with fear and resentment towards what was perceived as the threat of secularism or the standardizing and capitalist values brought by a touristic industry that became essential for the economic survival of the nation.

Finally a democratic Spain, systematically dissolved the difference between culture and international relationships in an attempt to project the image of a re-imagined national project, putting in the hands of the Ministry of International Affairs a great part of the responsibility for Cultural Politics. At the same time, t

• Department: Latin American and Iberian Cultures
• Instructor: Alberto Medina
  Info
• 3 points

Climate and Global Migrations

This course explores the deep historical roots of climate-related migration. Before the categories of climate and environmental refugees emerged in recent decades, climate variability, environmental disasters, and ecological change have often shaped human mobility. Building on case studies from across the world and a timeline spanning from antiquity to the present, the class will examine the relationship between human migrations, environmental crises, economic transformations, and political conflicts. Since displacement disproportionately affects vulnerable communities that rely on less resilient environments, the class also sheds light on global inequality by looking at the politics of freedom of movement, nativism, and the connection between anti-immigration backlash.

• Department: History @Barnard
• Instructor: Angelo Caglioti
  h-index: 2 Info
• 4 points

Contemporary Turkish Politics

Turkey’s (Türkiye’s) regional identity has always been ambiguous and multifaceted. While Turkey is sometimes located within the Middle East in academic writings, media reporting, and country analyses, at other times, it is listed among the countries of Europe. In fact, Turkish Republic has always been at the margins of Europe. Developments in Turkey had an impact on European societies while the political dynamics in Europe have always affected Turkey. This course not only reviews Turkey’s unique relationship with Europe but also the international and domestic political developments that preceded democratic and authoritarian practices in Turkey by highlighting critical themes such as westernization, liberalism, secularism, the role of the military, gender, minorities, migration, citizenship, electoral authoritarianism and autocratic legalism.

• Department: Political Science
• Instructor: Ayse Kadioglu
  Info
• 3 points

SCREENDANCE:COMPOSITION

Prerequisites: Must have taken a Dance Department Composition course, have some dance training. This experiential, hands-on course requires all students to choreograph, dance, and film. Focusing on single-shot film-making, the duet of the camera and the dance will create an understanding of the interaction between the two, enabling students to create a final short film.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Gabri Christa
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 3 points

Art in America, 1968-2000: Culture at th

Historians often approach the late 20th century through the lens of politics and economics, tracking the rise of conservatism, neoliberalism, and the dominance of global capitalism following the end of the Cold War. These narratives, however, leave little room for the arts during a time when American culture became a worldwide export and artists around the country produced inventive work that transformed the culture industry. How does our understanding of the late 20th century change when we focus on the arts? What do we learn from artists about those more familiar subjects of politics and economics. This seminar seeks to answer such questions, exploring cities that emerged as artistic hubs around the United States from 1968-2000. We will survey New York, California, the Sun Belt, and Pacific Northwest, examining subjects such as the rise of Wall Street and the art market; the national “culture war” between conservative politicians and artists; changes in the Hollywood studio system; the development of Silicon Valley, the internet, and tech-culture; the cultural hybridity of the Borderlands/la frontera; the utopian, free-market aspirations of Disney; and artistic responses to globalization. A goal of this class is to practice doing cultural history across artistic genres. Rather than focus on a single type of art, this course encompasses a variety of forms and media so that students can learn to make connections between different modes of cultural expression. We will pair these primary sources with works of historical scholarship so that we can contextualize the role of art in society and think about how it changes at the end of the 20th century. There are no prerequisites for this course, which will enrich majors in History and American Studies, as well as Ethnicity and Race Studies, AAADS, Urban Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Art History, Film and Media Studies, Drama and Theatre Arts, and Dance.

• Department: History
• Instructor: Juliana A Devaan
  Info
• 4 points

DANCES OF INDIA

A range of dance genres, from the traditional to the innovative, co-exist as representations of Indianness in India, and beyond. Identities onstage and in films, morph as colonial, national, and global contexts change. This course zooms from micro to macro views of twentieth century staged dances as culturally inflected discourse. We review how Indian classical dance aligns with the oldest of performance texts, and with lively discourses (rasa as a performance aesthetic, Orientalism, nationalism, global recirculations) through the ages, not only in India but also in Europe, Britain and America. Throughout the course, we ask:- How is culture embodied? How do historical texts configure dance today? How might they affect our thinking on mind-body, practice-theory, and traditional-contemporary divides? How does bodily patterning influence the ways that we experience our surroundings and vice versa? Can cultural imaginaries instigate action? How is gender is performed? What are dance discourses?

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Uttara Coorlawala
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

Afro-Indigenous Relations: Coexistence,

This course examines Afro-Indigeneity as an emerging critical field and as a decolonial framework for the historical, cultural, and political analysis of Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the study of literature, history, film, music, and critical theory, the course analyzes the relationships, conflicts, and interdependencies between Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples from the colonial period to the present.

• Department: Spanish and Latin American Culture
• Instructor: Alex Pereira
  Info
• 3 points

DANCE CRITICISM

This course offers intensive practice in writing on dance and explores a range of
approaches to dance criticism from the 1940s through today. Starting from the premise
that criticism can be an art form in itself, we ask: What are the roles and responsibilities
of a critic? How do our own identities and experiences inform how we see and write?
With the proliferation of dance in digital spaces, what new possibilities arise for dance
criticism? Class meetings include discussion, writing exercises, and peer workshops.
Assignments involve viewing performances outside of class.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Siobhan F Burke
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

HISTORY OF SOCIAL DANCING

Why do we dance—in groups, as couples, on our own, and in genres that range from ballroom dance to hip hop? How does the collective experience of dance create and transform community, produce subcultures or diasporas, and facilitate conformity or rebellion? This course approaches such questions by treating both reading and dancing itself as complementary modes of critical inquiry: we will divide our time between reading history, theory, memoirs, literature, and more; and actually learning and doing social dances of the past and present that have provoked upheavals in social orders. We will study dances that range across history while focusing on the twentieth century and present day, spanning topics that include Renaissance choreomanias, French-Caribbean minuets and contradances, the “wicked waltz,” “animal dances” of the ragtime era, lindy hop, salsa, voguing, viral dances of social media, and contemporary clubbing. Through the constant interplay of critical reading and critical dancing, we will query the power dynamics, historical forces, European and African aesthetics, and more, that intersect in social dances across history, and indeed in our own bodies. This introductory course welcomes students from any discipline, and of all abilities.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Seth S Williams
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 3 points

Global Francophone Cinema

In this course, we will consider French-language cinema as an inherently global phenomenon, which stems both from the transnational nature of the medium itself, and the legacy of the former French empire. From the very beginning, the Lumière brothers sent cameramen and projectionists to faraway locations—from India to Indochina, or from Mexico to Morocco. If early French ethnographic and narrative cinema functioned as a form of soft power, by the mid-20 th -century, filmmakers were on the frontlines of anti-colonial militantism, documenting, for instance, the horrors of the Algerian War. In the wake of decolonization, great African directors tackled the challenges of emergent nations, as well as the complex neocolonial networks that kept them tied to European metropoles. Today, filmmakers from around the world—from Iran to Cambodia—turn to live-action film and animation in French—despite their complicated relationships to both the language and France’s former empire. This course will include units on: ethnography and docufiction; colonial and anticolonial cinema; historical violence and memory; banlieue, beur, and Black identities; and emergent queer filmmakers. Taught in English, with films in French (and other languages) with English subtitles. Required readings will be available in English, with some optional readings in French for French majors and minors. Satisfies the Global Core requirement. Students may receive credit for the French major / minor if they submit their papers in French. Participation in a discussion section is required.

• Department: French
• Instructor: Aubrey A Gabel
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

Anti-Apartheid Solidarity Movement

This course examines the struggle against South African apartheid with a particular focus on the global solidarity movement in the 20th century. The class will examine key turning points in the movement, its connection with broader anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, gendered constructs of apartheid and feminist leadership in the movement, and the circulation of theories of racial capitalism. Students will understand how and why apartheid became a global concern. Students will work on a project using the primary source material available on the African Activist Archive Digital Project at Michigan State University.

• Department: History @Barnard
• Instructor: Premilla Nadasen
  CULPA: 10 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SR SEM IN BIOLOGY

Required for all majors who do not select the year-long Senior Thesis Research & Seminar (BIOL BC3593 & BC3594) to fulfill their senior capstone requirement. These seminars allow students to explore the primary literature in the Biological Sciences in greater depth than can be achieved in a lecture course. Attention will be focused on both theoretical and empirical work. Seminar periods are devoted to oral reports and discussion of assigned readings and student reports. Students will write one extensive literature review of a topic related to the central theme of the seminar section. 
Topics vary per semester and include, but are not limited to:
 Plant Development
, 
Animal Development & Evolution,
 Molecular Evolution, Microbiology & Global Change, Genomics, Comparative & Reproductive Endocrinology, and Data Intensive Approaches in Biology.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• Instructor: Rafael Marcondes
  Info
• 4 points

GUIDED RESEARCH & SEMINAR

This year-long course is open to junior and senior Biology majors and minors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give a poster presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills two upper-level laboratory requirements for the Biology major or minor. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3591 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3592 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3593-BIOL BC3594.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• 4 points

GUIDED RESEARCH & SEMINAR

This year-long course is open to junior and senior Biology majors and minors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give a poster presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills two upper-level laboratory requirements for the Biology major or minor. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3591 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3592 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3593-BIOL BC3594.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR

Research and scholarly writing in chosen topics relating to dance. Methods of investigation are drawn from prominent archival collections and personal interviews, as well as other resources. Papers are formally presented to the Dance Department upon completion.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Paul A Scolieri
  CULPA: 19 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR

Research and scholarly writing in chosen topics relating to dance. Methods of investigation are drawn from prominent archival collections and personal interviews, as well as other resources. Papers are formally presented to the Dance Department upon completion.

• Department: Dance @Barnard
• Instructor: Paul A Scolieri
  CULPA: 19 Info
• 4 points

NEUROSCIENCE GUIDED RESEARCH

This lab-based course introduces students to advanced methods in cognitive neuroscience, focusing on the application of electroencephalography (EEG) for real-time recording of brain activity. Unlike traditional approaches that study how the brain responds to different external stimuli or task demands, this course centers on spontaneous brain activity that occurs during rest or just before experimental events. Whether or not spontaneous brain activity is just meaningless noise remains an active area of research in cognitive neuroscience. Some researchers believe that spontaneous brain activity may be an important factor shaping our subjective experience of the world. However, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive in part due to the challenges in objectively defining and measuring subjective experience.

In this course, students will address this challenge by developing methods to study the relationship between spontaneous brain activity and subjective experience, with a particular focus on mind-wandering and the sensory phenomena elicited by Ganzflicker and Ganzfeld stimulation. The course culminates in independent research projects where students test their hypotheses by collecting and analyzing behavioral and EEG data. Key questions to address include: can spontaneous fluctuations in brain activity account for why people sometimes zone out while performing a task? Can the same fluctuations explain why people sometimes have different sensory experiences despite constant external stimuli? Do individual variations in spontaneous brain activity help explain why some people are more likely to report such experiences?

Note: The course involves weekly in person meetings as well as asynchronous work on data acquisition, analysis, and primary article readings for approximately 6 additional hours per week (on average).

• Department: Neuroscience & Behavior @Barnard
• Instructor: Kara Pham
  CULPA: 9 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMINAR

SR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMI

This year-long course is open to senior Biology majors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give an oral presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills the senior capstone requirement for the Biology major. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3593 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3594 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMINAR

SR THESIS RESEARCH & SEMI

This year-long course is open to senior Biology majors. Students will complete an independent research project in Biology under the guidance of a faculty mentor at Barnard or another local institution. Attendance at the weekly seminar is required. By the end of the year, students will write a scientific paper about their project and give an oral presentation about their research at the Barnard Biology Research Symposium.

Completion of this year-long course fulfills the senior capstone requirement for the Biology major. This course must be taken in sequence, beginning with BIOL BC3593 in the Fall and continuing with BIOL BC3594 in the Spring. Acceptance into this course requires confirmation of the research project by the course instructors. A Barnard internal mentor is required if the research project is not supervised by a Barnard faculty member. This course cannot be taken at the same time as BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• 4 points

RSRCH/SEM-NEUROSCNCE&BEHAVIOR

Prerequisites: Open to senior Neuroscience and Behavior majors. Permission of the instructor. This is a year-long course. By the end of the spring semester program planning period during junior year, majors should identify the lab they will be working in during their senior year. Discussion and conferences on a research project culminate in a written and oral senior thesis. Each project must be supervised by a scientist working at Barnard or at another local institution. Successful completion of the seminar substitutes for the major examination.

• Department: Neuroscience & Behavior @Barnard
• Instructor: Russell D Romeo
  CULPA: 9 Info
• Instructor: Elizabeth P Bauer
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 21 Info
• Instructor: Alex White
  h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Kevin G Bath
  Info
• 4 points

GUIDED RESEARCH

Similar to BIOL BC3591-BIOL BC3592, this is a one-semester course that provides students with degree credit for unpaid research 
without 
a seminar component. You may enroll in BIOL BC3597 for between 1-4 credits per semester. As a rule of thumb, you should be spending approximately 3 hours per week per credit on your research project.

A 
Project Approval Form
 must be submitted to the department each semester that you enroll in this course. Your Barnard research mentor (if your lab is at Barnard) or internal adviser in the Biology Department (if your lab is elsewhere) must approve your planned research 
before
 you enroll in BIOL BC3597. You should sign up for your mentor's section. 

This course does not fulfill any Biology major requirements.  It is open to students beginning in their first year.

• Department: Biological Sciences @Barnard
• Instructor: Rafael Marcondes
  Info
• Instructor: Hilary Callahan
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: John Glendinning
  CULPA: 23 h-index: 39 Info
• Instructor: Jordan Balaban
  Info
• Instructor: Jj L Miranda
  CULPA: 3 Info
• Instructor: Alison Pischedda
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 11 Info
• Instructor: Jonathan Snow
  CULPA: 7 h-index: 18 Info
• Instructor: Brian Morton
  CULPA: 21 Info
• Instructor: Jennifer H Mansfield
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 15 Info
• Instructor: Gabrielle Corradino
  Info
• Instructor: Jessica Goldstein
  CULPA: 14 Info
• Instructor: Emlyn J Resetarits
  Info
• Instructor: Rishita Shah
  Info
• 1-4 points

PROBLEMS IN CHEMISTRY

Prerequisites: CHEM BC3328 and permission of instructor. Individual research projects at Barnard or Columbia, culminating in a comprehensive written report.

• Department: Chemistry @Barnard
• Instructor: Christian Rojas
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Marisa C Buzzeo
  CULPA: 2 Info
• Instructor: Dina C Merrer
  CULPA: 24 Info
• Instructor: Andrew C Crowther
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 2 points