Women’s Studies

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard 

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary department for students who wish to explore gender and its relation to other axes of power: race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. We use these concepts to analyze human experience in its bodily, political, economic and cultural dimensions. Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies covers a complex variety of theoretical and empirical scholarship both within traditional disciplines and in interdisciplinary frames in the humanities, in the social sciences and in the natural sciences as well as combinations of the three. The Department is committed to critical perspectives and bodies of knowledge that contribute to possibilities for transformation and change.

Spotlight on Teaching: Courses that Make the Connections 

Spring 2026 Courses

The field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) has developed a curriculum dedicated to inquiry and action, theory and practice, scholarship and feminism. We work with our colleagues in Africana Studies and American Studies in the Consortium on Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (CCIS). CCIS courses model collaboration, community, and interdisciplinarity. We maintain the scholar-teacher model central to a liberal arts education by connecting with the work of the Barnard Center for research on women to develop analysis and practices that address the current moment through scholarly discussions (examples here, here, here, here, and here), community collaborations, and student-led research.

Spotlight on Faculty Research: Neferti Tadiar, “Why the Question of Palestine is a Feminist Concern”:

“During our weeklong investigative trip, we were witness to multiple and varied testimonies to and clear evidence of the daily acts of violence, harassment and humiliation that Palestinians are subjected to, both massive and intimate.” Read the full article here.

See also: Neferti Tadiar, “Powers of Defending Freedom”