From the Department of French and Romance Philology to the Chazen Institute of International Business, European Studies takes place at a number of locations across Columbia's campus. Below is a list of departments, institutes, and centers that host research and programming related to Europe. For more information, please follow the link provided to the department's homepage.

Institutes

Deutsches Haus
Deutsches Haus at Columbia University was established in 1911 to encourage academic, cultural, and social exchange between members of the Columbia community and the public with an interest in German affairs. Cultural programs and social activities sponsored by Deutsches Haus include lecture and film series, conferences, recitals, and informal gatherings run by and for students. Frequent events throughout the autumn and spring terms offer the opportunity for students to practice their German. Deutsches Haus programs are free and open to the public, providing a cultural resource for the wider intellectual and professional community of New York City.

The Earth Institute
While revolutionary advances in science and technology have lifted humanity to new heights of prosperity and longevity in many parts of the world, hundreds of millions of people are vulnerable to the impacts of hazards and natural disasters, extreme poverty, infectious disease and a host of other challenges. The Earth Institute’s overarching goal is to help achieve sustainable development primarily by expanding the world’s understanding of Earth as one integrated system. We work toward this goal through scientific research, education, and the practical application of research for solving real-world challenges.

The Hispanic Institute
Founded in 1920, the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University is a cultural center whose aims are to disseminate research on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian culture in all its manifestations and to promote academic and social events that showcase new contributions to Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian cultural production in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. The Institute is the official sponsor of all campus activities undertaken by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Columbia. Among these are a yearly lecture series that involves the visit to campus of around ten renowned national and international scholars and a film series of Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan cinema. Since its inception, the Hispanic Institute has published numerous scholarly books and anthologies and, since 1934, has edited the distinguished scholarly journal Revista Hispánica Moderna.

Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
The Institute provides institutional support for cross-disciplinary and cross-regional comparative work, acknowledging the force of recent changes in the humanities, the social sciences, law, and architecture. The work of the Institute is fully historical in its range. Of particular interest to the Institute is the post-Cold War rethinking of area studies paradigms in relationship to new developments in the discipline of comparative literature itself. Our curricular planning relies heavily on cross-disciplinary team-teaching. In the curriculum, as well as in our conferences, lecture series, and workshops, we bring a literature-focused study of language and culture to the area studies as that mandate is reconsidered and, conversely, we try to give substance and recognition to those directions in comparative literature that can benefit from the breadth of knowledge produced by a reshaped area studies. In this effort, we work collaboratively with the social sciences.

Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies
Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies encourages the study of all aspects of our field, both in and out of the classroom. Numerous members of the Institute are involved, in various ways, with European studies, most notably with Columbia’s Yiddish program, one of the leading programs for the study of literature, and culture of European Jewry in the world.

Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life
Religion, along with the intolerance and conflict surrounding religion, has emerged as an important contemporary force. To address this continuously changing situation, the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life brings together scholars and students in religion, cultural anthropology, history, political science, economics, social psychology and other allied fields to sustain multi-disciplinary analysis, reflection, and response to historical and contemporary issues that are of great significance. The Institute also engages political and economic figures, as well as religious and cultural leaders, in its programs. While seeking to understand the bases of conflict and unrest, it examines traditions, practices, and historical examples that demonstrate the potential for understanding, tolerance and ecumenical values within religious traditions, as well as patterns of social institutions that may facilitate coexistence and mutual support.

Institute for Research on Women and Gender
The Institute for Research on Women and Gender is the locus of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship and teaching at Columbia University. Offering an undergraduate degree program in Women's and Gender Studies, and graduate certification in Feminist Scholarship, the Institute draws its faculty from all disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and provides rigorous training in interdisciplinary practice. Courses survey the history and theory of gender studies, preparing students for professional work or further academic engagement in the field.

Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy
The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) is the research arm of the social sciences at Columbia University in the City of New York. We work to produce pioneering social science research and to shape public policy by integrating knowledge and methods across the social scientific disciplines.

Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America
Founded in 1991 on the basis of an agreement between Columbia University and the Republic of Italy, the Academy sponsors advanced research in all areas relating to Italian history, science, and society; presents distinguished examples of Italian culture and art; and promotes academic, cultural, and scientific exchange at the highest level. At the core of the work of the Academy lies its Fellowship Program which hosts senior scholars who devote one or two semesters at the Academy.

Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business
The Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business is the focal point for Columbia Business School's major international programs and initiatives. The Institute provides forums for collaboration and learning among students, faculty members, and the global community, connecting these constituencies with experiences, cultures, and practices in markets across the globe. The Chazen Institute plays a leading role in shaping international business education through experiential learning programs, research, symposia and conferences, curricular innovation, and the creation of intellectual content and its translation to wider international business communities.

Maison Française
Founded in 1913 and housed in historic Buell Hall, the Maison Française is the oldest French cultural center established on an American university campus. It is a meeting place for students, scholars, policymakers, business leaders, and all persons seeking a better understanding of the French-speaking world. Recurring programs (open to Columbia University students and members of the Société des Amis de la Maison Française) include a conversation program which meets weekly on Tuesdays, and a film series which takes place on Thursday evenings. Our special events are open to the public and feature interdisciplinary conferences, lectures, and seminars, held in conjunction with the Center for French and Francophone Studies, the Department of French and Romance Philology, and with other schools and departments throughout the University.

Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law

The Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law has an outstanding reputation in the field of foreign and comparative law and foreign relations and has been associated with Columbia University since 1931. The school was organized under the will of Judge Edwin B. Parker, a leading internationalist who had served on international adjudicatory bodies following World War I. The current director is Lance Liebman, William S. Beinecke Professor of Law. The Parker School promotes and supports courses and seminars in foreign and comparative law taught at Columbia Law School. Subjects covered include: business transactions in the Common Market, European Community law, Russian law, and transnational litigation.

Reid Hall
The Columbia University Institute for Scholars is housed in Reid Hall, the site of Columbia University's undergraduate and graduate educational programs in Paris since 1964. The Institute supports advanced research in the social sciences and humanities. It welcomes established scholars from around the world and offers an excellent collegial and academic environment in which to pursue individual or collective projects best conducted in a European setting. The Institute works jointly with the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH) and its International Programme for Advanced Studies (IPAS) and maintains close relations with French universities and academic organizations.

Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
In 1951, The Institute of War and Peace Studies was created under the sponsorship of Dwight D. Eisenhower during his tenure as President of Columbia University to promote understanding of the “disastrous consequences of war upon man’s spiritual, intellectual, and material progress.” From the beginning the Institute has interpreted its role broadly, probing the political, military, historical, legal, economic, moral, psychological and philosophical dimensions of international relations. Members of SIWPS contribute to the general discourse on these topics by authoring articles in journals such as Foreign Affairs, discussing current issues with officials and journalists, serving as consultants to government departments and agencies, and testifying before Congressional committees.

 

Departments

Anthropology
Anthropology examines the interplay of cultural, political, economic, and physical factors in the construction of human communities and subjects, addressing collective life as pragmatically built and imaginatively conceived. Undergraduate majors, as well as those students taking individual courses, benefit from a department whose faculty research spans a wide range of geographical and theoretical areas, and one in which undergraduate teaching is treated as a major part of faculty responsibility.

Art History and Archaeology
To study in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University is to join an enterprise that extends far beyond Morningside Heights. Perhaps more than any other department within the university, we are tied to the cultural life of New York City, where more people are engaged in making, writing about, exhibiting, and collecting art than any place else in the world. Whether it is devoted to Roman sculpture, Japanese ceramics, or French painting, classes in the Department bring students into direct contact with works of art in the city's museums and galleries, while classes in architectural history introduce students to the immense diversity of its buildings and public monuments. Like New York City, the curriculum of the Department, from the undergraduate major to the PhD program, encompasses many different cultures; it is also interdisciplinary in its scope, encouraging students to explore the relationship between the visual arts and religion, politics, urbanism, and all other domains of human experience in which works of art inspire, disturb, or energize the imagination.

Classics
In its coverage of the major contours of ancient Greek, Roman, and Mediterranean life, from the Greek dark ages to the fifth century CE, the Department of Classics is dedicated to studying the point of origin for so many political, cultural, and artistic developments in the later history of Europe as a whole. While the Department has special strengths in the study of Greco-Roman literature, faculty expertise extends to ancient philosophy, history, art and architecture, religion, linguistics, theater history, and numismatics. An important development in the study of Classics in Europe and North America in the last two decades has been the reception of, and response to, antiquity in later cultures—a development that is reflected in the research and teaching interests of our faculty.

Economics
Economics is the study of the ways in which society allocates its resources among alternative uses and the consequences of these decisions. The areas of inquiry deal with a varied range of topics such as international trade, domestic and international financial systems, labor market analysis, and the study of less developed economies, all of which are essential to understanding all regions of the world, and all of which are increasingly evolving in today's Europe.

English and Comparative Literature
The program in English and Comparative Literature fosters the ability to read critically and imaginatively—to appreciate the power of language to shape thought and represent the world—to be sensitive to the ways in which literature is created and achieves its effects. It provides broad exposure to the study of the historical and social conditions surrounding literary production and reception, an understanding of the range of forms that can shape literary meaning, and an encounter with the various geographical landscapes against which literature has been produced.

French and Romance Philology
The Department of French and Romance Philology is one of the oldest and most distinguished centers for the study of French and Francophone literatures and cultures. Since its founding in 1890, the Department has remained a point of contact for scholars and students from around the globe and continues to be a world leader in research and publications ranging from medieval literature to modern film, from the Enlightenment to contemporary questions of human rights, from Montaigne to Léopold Senghor. The Department of French houses the Center for French and Francophone Studies, dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary research and teaching in French Studies, as well as the Maison Française, a meeting place for students, scholars, and policy-makers seeking a better understanding of the French-speaking world. The Department is also home to Romanic Review, a leading scholarly publication for the study of Romance literatures.

Germanic Languages
Columbia's Department of Germanic Languages is one of the leading German programs in the country. The Department offers Dutch, Finnish, German, Swedish, and Yiddish languages, drawing on a wide range of language materials, including art, film, classical and popular music, literature, press, television, theater, and the web. The Department also offers a large selection of challenging and rewarding courses in German literature, philosophy, cultural history, and film. The Department prides itself on its strength in combining a variety of theoretical approaches with the exploration of different historical and cultural contexts. The Department houses Deutsches Haus, which offers programming that includes conversation hours, lectures, colloquia, and film screenings in Germanic languages. The graduate program in German literature and culture (MA, MPhil, PhD) incorporates a strong literary and theoretical orientation with cultural studies and cultural history. The program has a historical focus of roughly 1700 to the present and a broad emphasis on theory and methodology. Students are encouraged to combine their study of literature, literary theory, and intellectual history with coursework and research beyond the Department. Comparative and cross-disciplinary work can be pursued in conjunction with Columbia’s other graduate programs and numerous specialized institutes. The Department has strong ties with the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and many of our students also pursue work in other European languages and literatures.

History
The Columbia University Department of History is one of the leading centers of historical scholarship in the world. Our faculty studies all aspects of human history, from ancient to contemporary societies. Our community includes approximately fifty faculty members, 200 graduate students and 250 undergraduate majors. Our graduate program offers a broad education in most areas of historical scholarship and train students for a discipline and profession in the midst of considerable change. That includes not simply assisting students in acquiring the knowledge and skills essential to becoming contributing scholars, but also helping them to become effective teachers. Our undergraduate curriculum is rich and deep, covering all areas of the world and most periods of written history. Our courses explore various methodologies, a wide range of ways of writing history, and different approaches to the past. We emphasize no one approach to history, no single interpretative model. Our principal goals in the undergraduate classroom are to develop the intellectual breadth and deepen the analytical skills of our students.

Italian
Known for its commitment to a full range of Italian literary and cultural studies, from the medieval to the contemporary, the Department of Italian offers undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to study Italian literature and culture in a seminar setting with the close supervision of the Department’s faculty. The Department enriches the learning experience of our students with scholarly lectures and poetry readings by distinguished Italian, American and Italian-American visitors to the University, and relies on the extensive literature resources of the University libraries.

Music
The Department of Music at Columbia is one of the oldest and most distinguished at any American university. It was founded in 1896 by Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), who had a remarkable vision for the place of music in a liberal arts institution. MacDowell divided the earliest music courses into two groups: general musical culture and technical training. The legacy of the former group includes Music Humanities, part of Columbia's Core Curriculum since the 1940's, and the many courses in Western and non-Western repertories offered today for students from all disciplines. Mr. MacDowell also founded the Columbia University Orchestra in the year of his arrival, and it remains the oldest continuously operating orchestra in America.

Philosophy
Columbia's Philosophy Department is distinguished by its ecumenical ethos, with advanced research being pursued in the wide range of subjects in analytical philosophy as well as in the history of Western Philosophy – British, American, and from the European continent. Given its distinguished pragmatist heritage, the department does not think of the subject of philosophy as a self-standing discipline, but rather as continuous with other disciplines (logic, mathematics, physics, biology, psychology and economics on the one hand, and history, literature, law, political science, art, and music on the other). The Philosophy Department offers perspectives ranging from the classics of European thought to diverse modern approaches, and as such provides a sound foundation in the area of European Studies.

Political Science
The Department of Political Science provides advanced study and research opportunities for students who intend to pursue careers in research, scholarship, teaching, and public life. The department provides the opportunity for students to study theoretical and historical issues such as ethnicity and nationalism, political participation and culture in democratic and authoritarian regimes, transitions and consolidation of newly democratic regimes, and formal approaches to the design and comparison of institutions. Political science students regularly participate in the activities of the regional institutes of the School of International and Public Affairs, including the European Institute.

Religion
The academic study of religion strives toward objectivity in its examination of religious traditions and how they shape the lives of their adherents. Its purpose is not to promote or disprove religion in general or any belief system in particular, but rather to understand how religion or a belief system functions and develops over time. Students in the Department study a variety of religious traditions, how these traditions have shaped our society and others, how religious individuals and communities have made sense of the world around them, and what different religious thinkers offer to the contemporary discussion of ethics and values. The Department provides interdisciplinary as well as multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of religion, and its faculty cultivates the critical examination of, and disciplined reflection on, the religious dimensions of cultures, societies, and individuals.

Slavic Languages and Literatures
The Department offers undergraduate and graduate programs in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Polish, and Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian languages, literatures, and cultures. These fields are both fascinating in themselves and offer new perspectives in the study of Europe.

Sociology
Sociological research on Europe centers on studies of the environment, inequality and social policies, economic and organizational sociology, comparative political economy, geography, educational sociology, migration, and political mobilization in Europe. Departmental research is ongoing in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. A number of graduate students from France, Italy, and Germany are currently pursing the PhD in sociology at Columbia, and the Department regularly hosts visitors from various European universities as visiting scholars, lecturers, and professors.

Spanish and Portuguese
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Columbia University, located in the Casa Hispánica at 612 West 116th Street in New York, has long enjoyed an international reputation as a center for Hispanic and Lusophone studies. In addition to providing students with a commanding linguistic preparation in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan, the Department offers a flexible and varied undergraduate program that enables them to study the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds in all historical periods—from the medieval to the globalized present—and in a variety of cultural contexts: the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, the former colonies of Portugal, and the United States. Our graduate program trains students to become first-rate scholars and teachers who are theoretically sophisticated and attuned to the issues, polemics, and approaches that define the profession currently as a field of intellectual endeavor.

Centers and Programs

Alliance Program
The Alliance Program is a joint venture between Columbia University and three French Universities: the Ecole Polytechnique, SciencesPo, and the Université Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne. Priorities include students' mobility across the Atlantic, dual degree programs in all disciplines, teaching exchanges, and joint research projects. The Alliance Program is also a unique platform for transatlantic debate and dialogue within our universities on the pressing issues of our time. More than 30 conferences are organized on a yearly basis, in New York and in Paris, in collaboration with The European Institute at Columbia University.

Center for the Ancient Mediterranean
Part of the Center's function is didactic, part of it is scholarly. Our unifying purposes are to improve communication and stimulate co operation between all scholars and students at Columbia and in its surroundings who are interested in the ancient Mediterranean world, working to overcome recent trends of increased specialization; and to focus attention on the physical environment of the Mediterranean region and on the material conditions of ancient life as they are conveyed by the archaeological remains.

Center for Environmental Research and Conservation

CERC is a consortium of five world-renowned scientific institutions: Columbia University, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Wildlife Trust. CERC is headquartered at Columbia University and is part of Columbia's Earth Institute, with a mission to build environmental leadership and to solve complex problems in order to stem the loss of biological diversity and achieve environmental sustainability. Collectively, the CERC Consortium's research covers the globe with programs in over 60 countries. Since its founding in 1994, CERC's educational efforts have directly reached over 10,000 students, conservation scientists, practitioners, policy makers, grade school teachers, and concerned citizens.

Center for International History
The Center for International History fosters discussion of the historical perspectives of contemporary international issues. It draws upon the collective intellectual resources, not only of the faculty and graduate students of history, but also of scholars from anthropology, political science, sociology, law and other adjacent fields as well as policy-makers, journalists, and other practitioners.

Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion
The Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR) conducts research and training on the interfaces of and tensions between religion, toleration, and democracy in the world. It opened in July 2006, with initial funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and addresses these five themes: new approaches to religion in international affairs; democracy and religion in research and practice; contemporary issues in tolerance, conflict and religious difference; religion, human rights and public policy; and international religious conflict and toleration in sacred states. These issues are of increasing relevance to both Europe and the world, especially as Europe takes a more prominent place in world affairs.

Center for the Study of Human Rights
Established in 1978, the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) is committed to providing human rights education to our students, fostering innovative interdisciplinary academic research, and offering its expertise in capacity building to human rights leaders, organizations, and universities around the world. CSHR coordinates and supports the Columbia College Human Rights Program, the Human Rights Studies MA, and SIPA’s Human Rights Concentration. We also organize a national workshop for human rights educators that focuses on developments and challenges in the field. CSHR also provides advanced training on advocacy and organizational development for human rights leaders from around the world through the Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP). HRAP convenes forums for the wider human rights community, including academics, NGO leaders, policymakers, and the public at large, to encourage greater dialogue and cooperation on rights-based issues.

Center on Capitalism and Society
The Center on Capitalism and Society was conceived in response to a long-unanswered question in economics: What historical accidents or strategies explain the remarkably high prosperity and productivity generally observed in the American economy? Although economic historians in the past century nominated several explanations – the work ethic, Yankee ingenuity, and the beckoning frontier – modern economics suggests the answer may lie in America’s system of economic institutions. Increasingly, these systems are seen in other parts of the world, especially in Europe, which also has seen remarkable prosperity and productivity and continues its debate on free and regulated market systems.

Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development
CGSD manages the social sciences activities of the Earth Institute. Our mission is to augment the intellectual community using social sciences approaches to address the most pressing international development problems of our time. This mission overlaps with those of social science departments across the University with whose faculty we collaborate. The hallmark of CGSD is interdisciplinary research and policy application. We operate on the underlying principle that because development problems cross disciplines – from the environment to disaster preparedness to public health to economic planning – so must the solutions.

The Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History
The Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History was founded in 2007 as a cooperative venture amongst area institutions and plays a primarily organizational goal in uniting scholars and students from the New York metropolitan area who have common interests in the field. Besides maintaining a communication network to publicize events across campuses, the consortium pursues three principal activities: it organizes an annual paper series, currently focused on modern European topics; it hosts occasional conferences, whether on its own or in cooperation with other departments and centers; and it distributes summer fellowship monies for graduate students.

Council for European Studies
Founded in 1970, the Council for European Studies (CES) is the leading academic organization for the study of Europe. The Council promotes and recognizes outstanding, multidisciplinary research in European Studies through a range of programs, including conferences, publications, and awards. CES is hosted by The European Institute at Columbia University.

European Legal Studies Center

The European Legal Studies Center, under the direction of Professor George A. Bermann, trains students to take on leadership roles in international public affairs and the global economy. The European Legal Studies Center has made its international focus the cornerstone of its teaching, research, and student community. Columbia Law School's curriculum offers the most extraordinary array of international, comparative, and foreign law courses of any law school in the United States, in addition to European dual degree programs and study abroad opportunities with several European universities. Students have the opportunity to study European and Transatlantic Law as relates to the EU, the WTO, human rights, commerce and trade, criminal law and other fields, so they will be prepared to lead in the international legal arena.

East Central European Center
The East Central European Center promotes the study of the countries lying between Germany and Russia and between the Baltic and Aegean seas. Established in 1954, it is the oldest academic unit dealing exclusively with East Central Europe in any major U.S. academic institution. For many years, together with the Harriman Institute, it has been designated an East European, Russian, and Eurasian National Resource Center by the U.S. Department of Education. This designation has permitted an enlarged variety of courses and other offerings, and support to outstanding students through Foreign Language and Area Study (FLAS) fellowships.

Heyman Center for the Humanities
The Heyman Center presents several events on various themes in the Humanities each year, which are open not only to all at Columbia but to everyone in New York City and beyond. We host eight post-doctoral fellows every academic year, each holding a two-year Mellon fellowship in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, as well as a number of New York City Fellows who are distinguished artists, writers, musicians, and journalists living in the city. The Heyman Center houses Columbia's Center for Comparative Literature and Society, a group of Columbia's emeritus faculty who teach in the Core Curriculum, and The Friends of the Heyman Center which hosts seminars and colloquia. The Lionel Trilling Seminar and the Edward Said Memorial Lecture are also based at The Heyman Center.

Language Resource Center

The Language Resource Center is hub of language instruction at Columbia University. Founded with support from the Mellon Foundation, the LRC allows the University to increase the number of languages taught, encourage innovative language pedagogy, and deepen the context for language study. The LRC is the administrative home to instruction in fifteen less commonly taught languages and to multimedia resources for instruction in all language offerings. The work of the LRC fits into a University-wide effort to encourage collaboration across the boundaries of departments, disciplines, and schools. By working alongside, but outside of, traditional departments, the LRC meets varied and evolving language needs arising from globalization and from the further internationalization of Columbia’s student and faculty population. By encouraging the development of web-based resources, adaptable software, and affiliations with other universities, the LRC lends further flexibility to Columbia’s language offerings.

Program in Hellenic Studies
The Program in Hellenic Studies was established in 1987 through a generous gift from Kimon A. Doukas, building on a rich tradition of Greek language study at Columbia dating to the 1930s. The Program offers students the opportunity to study Greece through a modern lens and prepares them for professional work or further academic study in the field. At the heart of the curriculum is a series of courses that investigate the relation between language and culture in Greece, Cyprus, and the Diaspora in the modern period. The aim is to build a strong linguistic base on which to construct a greater knowledge of Modern Greek literary, political, and social currents and attitudes; and also to offer students a theoretical framework for analyzing cultural differences more generally.

The Swedish Program
The Swedish Program, housed in the Department of Germanic Languages, offers students a foundation in the language and literature of the Swedish-speaking world. While a number of courses focus on language instruction and the culture of Sweden, others bring Swedish into a comparative perspective with other Nordic cultures. The Program also presents a CD series, “Scandinavia Off Broadway: On Campus, At Columbia,” that features recordings of music and readings of plays and stories by important Scandinavian composers and writers.

The Urban Studies Program
The Urban Studies program offers students the opportunity to explore the important political, economic, historical, and cultural issues that inform urbanism. By integrating study from numerous academic disciplines, students gain a strong understanding of the complex relationships that contribute to both the problems and opportunities of city living. As Europe is one of the world's most urbanized regions, urban studies is particularly relevant to the study of Europe.

 

 

Barnard

Anthropology
Anthropology examines how cultures provide frames for the ways people think, act, and make sense of their society. Our faculty have wide-ranging interests—including the study of religion, media, conservation, and visual and material cultures. Courses, introductory to advanced, offer students keen anthropological insight into people and cultures around the world. Barnard Anthropology provides students new ways to perceive and analyze the world, to understand difference, and to think on a global scale while still focused on the lived experiences of everyday life.

Art History
The Department of Art History offers students the opportunity to study not only the form and content of works of art, but also the social and political contexts surrounding them. Students take a two-semester introduction to the discipline that is team-taught be faculty at both Barnard and Columbia, and is global in its scope, relating European and American art to that of Asia and Africa. This course affords students access to more specialized courses in a spectrum of different periods and places. The study of majors in the Department culminates in a course on Methods and Theories of Art History and a Senior Thesis.

Barnard Center for Research on Women
The Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) is dedicated to the promotion of feminist scholarship and activism, and is a community of faculty, students, staff, community activists, scholars, and alumnae. The Center aims to keep feminist studies at the forefront of college life and works in collaboration with the college's Department of Women's Studies and Columbia's Institute for Research on Women and Gender. The Center maintains a resource library, hosts lectures and conferences highlighting women's studies research, and has a series of publications, including the Scholar and Feminist Online and New Feminist Solutions.

Classics
Our department provides students with a knowledge of the language, literature, and civilization of ancient Greeks and Romans. The close cooperation of Barnard and Columbia in planning and implementing the curriculum offers students a wide range of specialties from which to construct a sound and coherent program of studies according to their individual interests. All members of the Barnard department are available as advisers and should be consulted as early as possible in the planning of a major field.

Comparative Literature
The Program in Comparative Literature at Barnard allows students to explore the interaction between literary works of different languages and national traditions from a cross-cultural perspective. It integrates literary theory and criticism to address fundamental questions about the purpose, nature, and value of literature in global contexts. Students are exposed to textual analyses and concepts of literature that enable them not only to study the interrelationship of literature from two or more cultures, but to examine literary texts in relation to other media and disciplines.

Economics

The Barnard Economics Department believes that an excellent liberal arts education in economics must include a thorough grounding in neoclassical economic theory, modern statistical method, and their applications in the traditional fields of economic science.  It also must go beyond this to a critical study of the origins of economic thought in the classical political economists, the philosophical bases of economic science, the links between economics and other social sciences and humanistic disciplines, and the political consequences of economic doctrines.

English
The English Department is the largest at Barnard, in terms of faculty and, in most years, of majors. Various English faculty hold, or have held, joint appointments in other departments (e.g., Theatre) and programs (e.g., Director of First-Year Seminar or Centennial Scholars Program), and most contribute to interdisciplinary college programs and majors such as Women’s Studies, Comparative Literature, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Human Rights Studies, and Film Studies. This arrangement provides for a dynamic window into the study of English and through it European and world studies.

French
In addition to language instruction at all levels, the Barnard French Department offers courses covering diverse aspects of French literature and culture from the medieval to the contemporary period. Our dynamic and committed faculty has particular strengths in the areas of Francophone Studies, Translation Studies, Women Writers, and Cinema Studies. The Department actively encourages comparative and cross-disciplinary inquiry, and works closely with both the Barnard Program in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Program in Comparative Literature to promote the study of French literary and cultural relations in a broader historical context.

History
History encompasses the whole of human experience, helping us understand ourselves through the study of times and traditions other than our own. History means not only the record of the past but also the discipline of investigating and interpreting the past. The study of history develops habits of critical thinking and effective writing, as well as cultivates the careful analysis of various types of quantitative and qualitative evidence. It is of value not only to undergraduates who intend to pursue advanced degrees in the field, but also to students interested in exploring the diversity and complexity of the human past, as they hone their analytical and expository skills.

Philosophy

Barnard Philosophy students are brought into direct contact with ideas of the founders of modern Western thought. Students in the Philosophy department explore thinkers of the past and present, such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Foucault, and tackle some of the most enduring philosophical questions: What makes one action right and another wrong? Do computers think? Can you be certain about anything beyond your own existence? Is euthanasia morally justified? Students learn how to extract the principle points from philosophical texts, to present their own point of view on the issues, and to evaluate the soundness of arguments as they advance patterns of thought begun in antiquity.

Political Science
Political science works to develop an understanding of political institutions and processes in human society. This involves the evaluation of political systems and public policies in the context of challenges and changes. Our program will equip you with the skills to be an effective citizen in democracy; to participate as a public official, civil servant, lawyer, or political commentator; or to undertake graduate training in political science in preparation for a career in college teaching. The Department also offers two five-year joint-degree programs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA): the Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration (MPA) and the Masters of International Affairs Program (MIA).

Religion
The religion department's curriculum offers students the opportunity to explore the histories, texts, and practices of many of the world's religious communities and to consider both the profound ways in which religion has worked historically and how it continues to inform and affect the cultural, political, and ethical debates of the current moment. In addition, our classes invite students to reflect on the vexing theoretical questions that are generated by the category "religion" itself, an abstract category that has its own complicated history. The academic study of religion is self-consciously interdisciplinary and is essential to understanding the development of Europe.

Slavic

The Barnard-Columbia Slavic Department offers instruction in six Slavic languages and literatures (Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Ukrainian), with particularly extensive offerings in Russian.  The department prides itself on giving students a strong foundation in language study, which serves as invaluable preparation for future graduate work in literature, history, economics, or political science, as well as for careers in government, business, journalism, or international law.

Sociology
Sociology is a diverse academic discipline that draws its strength, and coherence, from a collective commitment to developing and testing theoretical principles about social life with empirical evidence. This commitment to systematic empirical research, across a range of methodological approaches, represents the strength of the discipline and the potential for a distinctive undergraduate experience for Sociology majors at Barnard. These approaches include varieties of quantitative data collection and analysis, participant observation, intensive interviewing, historical-archival research, and discourse analysis. All students taking courses in Sociology at Barnard can expect to learn about the crucial links between theory and empirical evidence for public policy, political and social debate, and civic engagement more broadly defined.

Spanish and Latin American Cultures
The Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures at Barnard College offers language and cultural training essential to understanding the Hispanic world. Through our strong collaboration with interdisciplinary programs at Barnard, including Comparative Literature, Africana Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Forum on Migration, as well as our teamwork with the Columbia Department of Spanish and Portuguese, we are ideally poised to guide students acquire the necessary historical and theoretical tools to understand the cultural and aesthetic production of the Hispanic world.

Women’s Studies
Women's Studies is an interdisciplinary field with its beginnings in the Women's Liberation movement of the late 1960's. Women's Studies arose from the curiosity of faculty and students about their history, their lives, and their fellow women, rather than from a nineteenth-century disciplinary base. As the field has expanded, from compensatory or recuperative scholarship, to work increasingly devoted to complex theoretical and empirical studies, so has our department's pedagogical vision and orientation. Areas of study include gender theory (in the humanities and the social sciences, and increasingly in the natural sciences), empirical studies (in areas as diverse as primatology, classical philology, and international relations), and empirical work in such interdisciplinary areas as East Asian culture, post colonial studies, film studies, and gay and lesbian studies.