creative writing barnard

Writing Fellows

Welcome to the writing fellows program.

Applications to become a Writing Fellow are live !

Writing Fellows are generous and critical readers. They ask questions so that the writer can clarify, explain, expand and explore their writing. They are not tutors or TAs. It is not their role to comment on the accuracy of the content or to grade a students’ paper. We believe—and our practice reflects—that every work a writer brings us belongs to the voice of the writer. 

Having finished their training, they staff the Erica Mann Jong '63 Writing Center and work in courses across the disciplines. They conference with students about written assignments to help clarify, organize, and strengthen content, so that a non-expert can understand the assignment.

Our work is built on the foundational belief that knowledge production can happen outside of a classroom and is not solely dependent on a professor. Worlds of knowledge can be built between peers and the experiences they bring to conversations when they listen and respond to each other.

Science Fellows

Science Fellows are students, often with a background in the sciences, who work as a subset of the Writing Fellows. They encourage scientific accessibility and literacy throughout campus and work closely with science faculty across departments to support students in developing skills to describe and interpret data, use scientific language clearly and concisely, and blend the skills learned in humanities classes with scientific ones. Science Writing Fellows receive the same training as do all Writing Fellows, which explores scientific writing and lab reports through critical thought and an engagement with writing pedagogy.

The Science of Writing

Learn how the Science Writing Fellows developed and the importance of centering writing in the sciences from this Winter 2022 feature in  Barnard's Magazine . 

Brief History of the Program

According to a 1992 article in Barnard Magazine , the first iteration of the Writing Fellows Program was the Writing Project. Use this timeline to explore a history of the Program, its projects, and mission. 

Barnard Year of Science: Science Writing Fellows

Barnard's Year of Science featured Jasmine Wang '23, a science writing fellow who helps other students with writing assignments for their science classes.

English Faculty

Full-time faculty.

Atefeh Akbari

James G. Basker

Christopher Baswell

Meredith Benjamin

Jennifer Boylan

Benjamin Breyer

Kristin Carter

Kristi Cassaro

Yvette Christiansë

Pamela Cobrin

Monica Cohen

Vrinda Condillac

Patricia Denison

Rachel Eisendrath

Peggy Ellsberg

Lisa Gordis

Nathan Gorelick

Achsah Guibbory

Kim F. Hall

Ross Hamilton

Jayne Hildebrand

Maria Hinojosa

Quincy Jones

Jennie Kassanoff

Daniela Kempf

Jhumpa Lahiri

Cecelia Lie-Spahn

Andrew Lynn

Hisham Matar

Francesca Ochoa

Eugene Petracca

Peter Platt

Andrew Ragni

Wendy Schor-Haim

William Chapman Sharpe

Michael Shelichach

Maura Spiegel

Duygu Oya Ula

Penelope Meyers Usher

Alexandra Watson

Elizabeth Weybright

Spring 2024 part-time faculty.

Emily Austin

Marissa Davis

Joey de Jesus

Farnoosh Fathi

Liana Finck

Shelly Fredman

Elisa gonzalez.

Nellie Hermann

Alexandra Horowitz

Linn Cary Mehta

Cleyvis Natera

John Pagano

Sarah Schwartz

Nina Sharma

Christine Smallwood

Kathleen tolan.

First-Year Writing

Department website: https://firstyear.barnard.edu/

417 Barnard Hall  212-854-2116

Department Administrator: Sarah Pasadino Department Assistant: Julissa Acosta

Mission First-Year Writing (FYW) courses invite students into the vibrant scholarly life of the college. Working in small, discussion-based seminar classes over the course of one semester, we read challenging literary texts and critical scholarship, helping students to develop fundamental skills in analysis and academic writing that allow them to take their place in vitally important scholarly conversations. Students may choose from a variety of special topics that focus on a particular literary tradition, theme, or phenomenon (see course descriptions for details).

Student Learning Outcomes Students who successfully complete this one-semester course should be able to:

• closely analyze evidence to develop persuasive claims
• develop claims into sophisticated, consequential ideas
• communicate ideas clearly through well-organized, lucid writing
• develop skills in critical reading and academic writing that transfer to courses across the curriculum
• conduct interdisciplinary research to ground literary works in different contexts (historical, theoretical, etc.)
• document sources and incorporate scholarship into original analytical arguments
• avoid plagiarism and other academic violations of Barnard's Honor Code
• gain confidence in speaking as well as writing skills in a small seminar setting

2023-24 Faculty

Director Wendy Schor-Haim (Senior Lecturer in English)

Associate Director Cecelia Lie-Spahn (Lecturer in English; Director, First-Year Writing Workshop; Associate Director, First-Year Writing Workshop Program)

Lecturers Meredith Benjamin Benjamin Breyer Vrinda Condillac (Interim Co-Director, First-Year Seminar Program)  Andrew Lynn Penelope Meyers Usher Duygu Oya Ula Alexandra Watson (Associate Director, Writing Program)

Term Assistant Professor Nathan Gorelick (Term Assistant Professor in English)

Term Lecturers Quincy Jones Francesca Ochoa Michael Shelichach Elizabeth Weybright

Post-Doctoral Fellow Andrew Ragni

Adjunct Lecturers Emily Austin Joey De Jesus Linn Cary Mehta Sarah Schwartz

Every Barnard first-year student is required to take a First-Year Writing course during their first or second semester at Barnard. 

Transfer students who did not pass a satisfactory course at their previous institution are not required to take First-Year Writing, but must take ENGL BC3103 THE ART OF THE ESSAY or ENGL BC3104 THE ART OF THE ESSAY or a 3-point literature course (not a creative writing course) from the Barnard English department offerings.

Jump to a Category

First-Year Writing: Critical Conversations First-Year Writing Workshop

First-Year Writing: Critical Conversations

First-Year Writing (FYW) courses invite students into the vibrant scholarly life of the college. Working in small, discussion-based seminar classes over the course of one semester, we read challenging literary texts and critical scholarship, helping students to develop fundamental skills in analysis and academic writing that allow them to take their place in vitally important scholarly conversations. Students may choose from a variety of special topics that focus on a particular literary tradition, theme, or phenomenon (see course descriptions for details).

A “critical conversation” is a conversation about ideas. It is sophisticated and thoughtful rather than one-sided and simplistic; it’s not about finding one right answer but rather about closely analyzing all of the evidence at hand and discovering something meaningful. By communicating what you discover clearly and cogently, you add to the broader scholarly conversation. When engaged in a critical conversation with other scholars, you consider their ideas in ways that help you develop your own thinking, rather than merely agreeing or disagreeing with what others have to say. The critical reading, discussion, and academic writing skills we focus on in First-Year Writing provide a foundation that crosses disciplinary boundaries and will help you in all of your courses.

FYWB BC1106 Seeing, Surveilling, and Performing. 3.00 points .

In this course, we will study the way culture influences how we make sense of what we see. We will examine how power is exercised by making people feel as though they are always being seen, how this surveillance polices the way gender, race, class, and sexuality are expressed, and how people perform their identities to reinforce or push back against this policing. Literary texts will include Passing by Nella Larsen, "The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado, Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, and the films Paris is Burning and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Secondary texts will include John Berger, Talia Bettcher, Judith Butler, W.E.B Dubois, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Jack Halberstam, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Laura Mulvey

FYWB BC1109 Wild Tongues. 3.00 points .

In this course, we’ll examine storytelling and language through the lens of gender. How are constructions of gender used to police what kinds of stories are told, who can tell them, and who is believed? What forms and strategies of narration are available and to whom? Our focus on tongues—both linguistic and anatomical—allows us to ask questions about the forms that language takes and the relationship of narrations and language to the body. How have women engaged and re-deployed existing myths and narratives? How is the self both constructed and policed through narratives of gender, race, class, sexuality, family? In our analyses, we’ll work to challenge fixed or binary understandings of gender and power by asking how these writers engage and challenge the various ways in which the category of "women" is constructed within culture. Readings are subject to change but may include The Hymn to Demeter, selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, selected poems by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Yvette Christiansë's Castaway, and/or selections from Cherrie Moraga's Loving in the War Years and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee and critical conversation texts by authors including Gloria Anzaldúa, Sara Ahmed, and Audre Lorde

FYWB BC1113 BODIES AND DESIRES. 3.00 points .

In this First-Year Writing course, we’ll examine a series of questions centered on bodies and desires. How is the body both constructed and policed through narratives of gender, race, class, and sexuality? How are bodies and desire mediated through and represented in language? We’ll consider how bodies become not just sites of objectification or of power but also of pleasure. We’ll think about the politics of respectability, in questioning who can be a subject, rather than object, of desire. In our analyses, we’ll work to challenge fixed or binary understandings of gender and power. Readings are subject to change but may include: Nella Larsen's Passing, Eliza Haywood's Fantomina, short stories by Luisa Valenzuela, Carmen Maria Machado and/or ir'ene lara Silva, poems by Sally Wen Mao and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and conversation texts by Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Sara Ahmed, John Berger, and/or Judith Butler

FYWB BC1114 WOMEN OF COLOR IN SPECULATIVE LITERATURE. 3.00 points .

"The Future is Female" except in science fiction, where it still looks pretty white and male. What happens when women of color take on such tropes as space exploration, cybernetics, superpowers, and the end of the world? How can women of color change the way we not only think of the future, but think of the present as well? In this class we’ll look at how speculative literature looks at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, technology, and environmental concerns. Readings will include work from such authors as Octavia Butler, Franny Choi, Sam Chanse, G Willow Wilson, and Tananarive Due with potential critical readings from Lisa Yaszek, Charlotte E Howell, and bell hooks

FYWB BC1115 MODERNITY. 3.00 points .

"All that is solid melts into air." So wrote Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, registering the astonishing pace with which daily life was being transformed around them. For them, and for many of their contemporaries, the central feature of the modern world was its ceaseless change. Under the pressure of political, scientific, and economic revolutions, traditional ways of living and thinking might disappear almost overnight, to be replaced not by a new order but instead with an unending experience of instability and dislocation. This course reads a set of writers who both respond to and participate in that process of constant transformation – in what we have learned to call modernity. Should culture try to protect timeless values from the shock effects of modernization? Or should it find, in change, an opportunity for new forms of life and new styles of expression? If – as Marx and Engels did – we imagine modernity as a distinctively European event, how might writers outside of Europe make use of and respond to a modernity that excludes them? Is modernity something that happened, and is over – or are we today still swept up in it? Readings may include: literature from Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Douglass, Woolf, Kincaid; philosophy and criticism from Montaigne, Kant, Marx, Weber, Du Bois, Kracauer, Chakrabarty

FYWB BC1121 LIVES IN TRANSLATION. 3.00 points .

This class focuses on the theme of translation and what happens when texts and people cross national, cultural, linguistic, racial or gendered borders. Through our classroom discussions and essays, we will explore the following questions: Why or how do texts lend themselves to or resist translation? How do encounters with dominant discourses necessitate acts of self-translation or resistance to translation, especially for people of color, immigrants or queer communities? How do narratives (both fictional and personal) change when translated across cultures and time to fit with local discourses? What is the role of the translator in these acts of remaking? Drawing on postcolonial and translation theory, we will consider how writers have pushed back against dominant narratives through texts that cross and complicate linguistic, cultural and national borders. Readings are subject to change but will likely include a selection from following: literary texts by James Baldwin, Sappho, Marjane Satrapi, Ocean Vuong, Fatimah Asghar, Irena Klepfisz, as well as various English translations of the 1001 Nights; and scholarly texts by Gloria Anzaldúa, Edward Said, bell hooks, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Jorge Luis Borges. Course costs will not exceed $20; access to books can also be made available to students who need them

FYWB BC1123 WRITING AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 3.00 points .

Beginning with the Popol Vuh, the Mayan myth of creation, which records the first contact with the Spanish conquistadors about 1555, we will explore the history of American nature writing up to the present, with particular attention to problems of environmental justice. Description and interpretation of nature has shaped artistic representation from the very beginning of human history, and we will read both texts and images from the Americas in relation to selected European texts: from Crevecoeur’s “Letters from an American Farmer” (1765) to excerpts from Wordsworth’s “Prelude” in England (1798), which in turn influenced Emerson’s essay “Nature” (1836) and Thoreau’s writing in Walden and “Civil Disobedience” (1851). We will also consider both texts and contexts from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939); Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962); John McPhee’s Encounters with the Archdruid (1971); and international reports and organizations including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and COP28. Engaging with activist organizations, we will both write and analyze the impact of contemporary environmental journalism such as Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature, Liz Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals

FYWB BC1124 HAUNTED AMERICAS. 3.00 points .

In this course, we will encounter ghosts and hauntings in literature from the Americas, primarily from Latin American and Caribbean writers. These ghosts expose something hidden in the past and pull dark secrets into the light. We will think about haunting not just as a supernatural experience, but as a mechanism that reveals layers of history and unearths long buried injustices. A few of the characters we will meet are: A Cuban exile living in Miami who is haunted by the life he left behind; a teenager in Argentina who explores her queer identity and confronts the ghosts of the state violence; a General accused of genocide who defends his innocence, though the ghosts in his home say otherwise. The ghosts in these stories force the characters to reckon with, or fall prey to, legacies of colonialism, war, and migration. Readings include literary works by Mariana Enriquez, Edwidge Danticat, Carlos Fuentes, Jean Rhys, Ana Menéndez, and others

FYWB BC1126 READING THE FUTURE. 3.00 points .

How do we think about the future? Why do we develop the hopes and fears that we do? How do present conditions and discourses inform, influence, or limit our senses of personal and political possibility? In this section of First-Year Writing, we will explore conceptions of the future in 19th through 21st-century literary fiction. We will begin by close reading 20th-century short stories that evoke hopes and fears for the future on individual, social, and global scales. We will then turn to H.G. Wells’ classic novella The Time Machine and place its portrayal of the future in the context of late Victorian science and socioeconomics. Finally, we will consider how contemporary literature reflects and responds to the accelerating climate crisis, and explore fiction’s role in helping us apprehend the potential for radical environmental disruption

FYWB BC1128 MUSIC IN NARRATIVE. 3.00 points .

How and to what ends does literature represent musical form or the feeling of musical encounter? In this course, we will discuss narratives in which music plays a significant role, whether through musical allusion or its sustained thematic presence, or through principles of musical composition and gesture that play in the background, informing a text’s structural flow. We will consider complex resonances between literary narratives and histories of music culture and aesthetics, asking how writers use music to world-build, to characterize, and to situate a text culturally and politically. Throughout the semester, we will pay particular attention to narratives that showcase the musical lives of characters belonging to historically marginalized groups. In doing so, we will question how race, gender, and sexuality intersect with musical histories of aesthetic power. Literary readings may include works by Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and James Joyce. Secondary readings in performance studies and musical aesthetics may include selections by Jennifer Lynn Stoever, Judith Butler, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Maria Edgeworth, and others

FYWB BC1129 SPECULATING THE PAST. 3.00 points .

Recent works as diverse as The New York Times’s Overlooked Project and Netflix’s Bridgerton raise questions about what records we keep, how we narrate history, and the factors that determine what stories we can tell. In this class, we will probe these questions by reading literary works that turn to a speculative mode to make sense of history, past and present. As we enter the critical conversation about the historical record, we will explore how authority and value are assigned to different texts and accounts. In so doing, we will also develop our ability to read texts' and documents' own theorizations of truth and fact. Readings may include work by Virginia Woolf, Marlene NourbeSe Philip, Carmen Maria Machado, Adrienne Rich, and N.K. Jemisin alongside critical texts by Saidiya Hartman, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and others. Course costs will not exceed $15

FYWB BC1130 TALKING BACK. 3.00 points .

Inspired by bell hooks's assertion that “moving from silence to speech is for the oppressed…a gesture of defiance that heals,” we read and write with attention to the power dynamics of speech and silence, of talking and talking back. Our literary and critical texts demand attention to the ways in which power shapes narrative, and narrative shapes power. We will think especially about how the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, speak to and against erasure; and also how the marginalized create community by talking and talking back. The readings include literary works by Nella Larsen, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, and Layli Long Soldier; and critical works by Frantz Fanon, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and others. The only book length work you will need is Toni Morrison’s Jazz (around $15 new)

FYWB BC1132 ATTENTION!. 3.00 points .

Attention is the foundation of investigation, action, and intention. It means concentration and deliberation. It can also mean distraction and confusion. Quietly reading a difficult work of literature, puzzling over a math problem, revising a paper for class, or cooking an elaborate meal are forms of attention. So is endlessly scrolling through social media, binge-watching a television series, or strolling aimlessly through the city. Where and how we use our attention is the foundation, the bedrock, of nearly everything we think and do. It is therefore unsurprising that gathering and directing our attention is also an enormous, lucrative industry. In this course we will study the science and philosophy of attention alongside the history of the "attention economy" and evolving techniques and technologies of attention harvesting. We will explore these subjects while reflecting upon and writing about our own habits of paying attention. By paying attention to attention, we will nurture a brighter awareness of the many interests vying for our time, mental engagement, money, our very lives, and of our abilities to scrutinize, critically examine, or resist our entrapment within the modern attention industry

FYWB BC1135 CONTESTED TRUTHS: MEMORY, AUTHORITY AND HISTORY. 3.00 points .

This class examines the ways that a historical event can be remembered and described differently by direct participants, and how personal biases, such as race, gender and class, affect the process of recollection and narration. Some of the texts that we will read and discuss include Sara Collins’ The Confessions of Fannie Langton, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, among others. Our analysis of these texts will be augmented by theoretical works drawn from psychology, literary studies and trauma studies

FYWB BC1136 TO UPEND A WORLD: ABOLITIONIST POETICS. 3.00 points .

In our class we will discuss abolition as a name for a set of imaginings that call for complete and total eradication of systems ("Worlds") that perpetuate collective harms. We will think about how capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy limit our imaginations, and how we can think in ways that remake our world. Students will read essays by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Pheng Cheah, Denise F. DaSilva, Edouard Glissant, and Christina Sharpe, and will trouble received readings of significant literary texts through abolitionist lenses to discern a range of liberatory strategies in the poetry, literary nonfiction, and fiction of writers including Audre Lorde, W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin, Lucille Clifton, M Nourbese Philip, Robin Coste Lewis, Etheridge Knight, Randall Horton, dg nanouk okpik, and Jackie Wang. As a class, students will discuss and consider these writers’, as well as their own, interventions in the context of literature's world-making power. (*Readings subject to change)

FYWB BC1137 THE TEENAGE STRANGE. 3.00 points .

Teenagers inhabit a strange land: in exile from childhood, still immigrating to adulthood. How have different writers mapped the liminal territory of the teenage experience? In this class, we will step away from the rich tradition of realistic Coming-of-Age narratives and explore how genre frameworks—including speculative, horror, fairy tale, gothic, and quest traditions—have been used to illuminate the Teenage Strange. How have writers used the strangeness of genre to render this slice of time? How does genre capture the teenage intersection between public and private inquiry—between larger questions about the world, and more private questions about the self? How does genre construct questions about fear, desire, rage, shame, power, culture, and love? How does it deconstruct reality so it can be seen, investigated, and felt? Readings may include work by Octavia Butler, A.S. King, Angela Carter, Carmen Maria Machado, Shirley Jackson, Joan He, Francesca Lia Block, Kelly Link, Viktor Shklovsky, Ursula K. LeGuin, Akwaeke Emezi, and others

FYWB BC1138 LETTERS. 3.00 points .

Dear student: I write to you, who now read these words. Or, perhaps, I don’t: perhaps I never had you in mind at all; perhaps you are just someone passing by, who has taken these words as though meant for yourself. This course examines how writers have made use of the privacy of letters in their public writing. What happens when we address our written words to a particular other? How, on the other hand, do we read words meant for someone else? What intimacies does the letter form make possible, or violate? And what might the special case of the letter have to tell us about writing in general? Objects in the course may include: fiction by Goethe, DeWitt, Diderot, Poe, West; epistolary poems by Ovid, Dickinson, Rankine, Shockley; paintings of letter-reading by Vermeer and Greuze; letter-memoirs by Baldwin and Vuong; criticism and theory by Althusser, Barthes, Benveniste, Fried, Howe, Jackson, Reed

FYWB BC1139 COLONIALISM, IMPERIALISM, AND SEXUALITY. 3.00 points .

This course considers the abundance of European literature and travel writing that detail the encounter between the colonizer and colonized. These narratives deploy stereotypes to characterize non-European geographies and people as excessively sensual and cast outside the progressive flow of time, waiting to be discovered by the white traveler. Edward Said termed this projected fantasy of sexual decadence “Orientalism,” or the cultural/historical reduction of “the East” into a stockpile of recognizable tropes. This reduction serves an ideological goal: to portray the North/West as the intellectual/cultural elite, and the South/East as the mere object of the former’s cataloguing fetish. This First-Year Writing course interrogates canonical texts of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European literature and travel writing by formulating questions about the erotic dimension of empires, with Said’s critical intervention as our guide. How is sexuality configured in colonial writing? What do these configurations tell us about the ideological map superimposed over the colony and the metropole? How do these constructions of sexuality continue to proliferate in our contemporary moment, and for what political ends?

FYWB BC1140 FEMINIST FAIRYTALES. 3.00 points .

In this class we will read and discuss feminist fairy tales: adaptations of classic tales and newly-imagined stories which—rather than promising a simple and tidy “happily ever after”—privilege female agency and offer up critiques of patriarchal structures. In dialog with texts that center women and other intersecting identities, we will talk about colorism, sexuality, desire, misogyny, motherhood, and more. Analyzing how these texts unmask and challenge various forms of oppression, we will explore how and why the magical and often didactic nature of the fairy tale genre lends itself to thinking critically about our current world and to envisioning more equitable futures. Readings include literary texts by Ovid, Julia Alvarez, Olga Broumas, Charles Perrault, Luisa Valenzuela, Nalo Hopkinson, Jeanette Winterson, Amal El-Mohtar, and Kelly Link. In dialog with these literary texts, we will also engage with various theoretical texts and perspectives; with film (Georges Méliès and Disney’s Frozen); with artwork; and with music (Taylor Swift)

First-Year Writing Workshop

First-Year Writing (FYW) Workshop is a four-credit course designed for students who feel they would benefit from extra preparation for the critical reading and writing that you will do at Barnard. FYW and FYW Workshop are equally rigorous -- both courses have the same critical reading and writing goals, and both courses satisfy your First-Year Writing requirement. FYW Workshop, however, meets 3 days per week instead of 2; it is worth 4 credits instead of 3; and the class sizes are smaller. NOTE: FYW Workshop is only offered in the Fall (not in the Spring).

Read about students' experiences in FYW Workshop here.

FYWB BC1500 (WORKSHOP) READING THE BODY. 4.00 points .

In this course, we’ll think of the body as a text we can read—one that both represents and creates intersections between the body, science, and identity. We’ll read literary texts that reveal how scientific authority gets mapped onto the body and embedded in ideas of race, gender, class, sexuality, family, and nation; we’ll also analyze how writers in turn investigate and play with these scientific scripts. How do literary depictions of the body both represent and resist scientific authority? What do they teach us about the "factness" and fluidity of identity and belonging? Readings are subject to change, but will likely include literature by Ovid, Octavia Butler, Amy Bonnaffons, Isabel Allende, and Nella Larsen, as well as select texts from feminist science studies, critical race studies, and queer theory

FYWB BC1506 (WORKSHOP) HAUNTED AMERICAS. 4.00 points .

In this course, we will encounter ghosts and hauntings in the fiction of Latin American and Caribbean writers. A Cuban exile is haunted by the life he left behind; a teenager in Argentina explores her queer identity and confronts the ghosts of state violence; a young woman courts colonial power and becomes a ghost herself. We will look to theories of hauntology to investigate the ways in which the characters in these stories reckon with, or fall prey to, legacies of colonialism, war, and migration. Readings may include literary works by Mariana Enriquez, Edwidge Danticat, Daniel Alarcón, Jean Rhys, and Ana Menéndez

FYWB BC1507 (WORKSHOP) FEMINIST FAIRYTALES. 4.00 points .

In this class we will read and discuss feminist fairy tales: adaptations of classic tales and newly-imagined stories which—rather than promising a simple and tidy “happily ever after”—privilege female agency and offer up critiques of patriarchal structures. In dialog with texts that center women and other intersecting identities, we will talk about colorism, colonialism, sexuality, desire, misogyny, motherhood, and more. Analyzing how these texts unmask and challenge various forms of oppression, we will explore how and why the magical and often didactic nature of the fairy tale genre lends itself to thinking critically about our current world and to envisioning more equitable futures. Readings, subject to change, include texts by Nalo Hopkinson, Carmen Maria Machado, Luisa Valenzuela, Suniti Namjoshi, Helen Oyeyemi, and Kelly Link

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Archives and Creative Writing

• What are Archives?
• Archival Access
• Archives-Based Writing Prompts
• Bibliography: Craft
• Bibliography: Theory

Sample Lesson Plans

• Citing Archival Sources
• What is An Archive? First lesson module of three on creative writing on archives. This one introduces the concept of archives and how they can connect to creative writing, including some examples of poetry that have used archives as source material. Can be used as a stand alone lesson or in concert with the latter two.
• Writing with the Digital Archives Second lesson module of three on creative writing on archives. This one introduces digital archives and finding aids, and gives a writing assignment where students can explore either the Barnard Archives' Digital Collections or the New York Public Library's Digital Collections. Can be used as a stand alone lesson or in concert with the other two lessons.
• Moving Forward with Archives and Creative Writing Third lesson module of three on creative writing on archives. This one provides resources and prompts for envisioning a more in depth writing project that makes use of archives. Can be used as a stand alone lesson or in concert with the other two lessons.
• << Previous: Bibliography: Theory
• Next: Citing Archival Sources >>
• Last Updated: Sep 25, 2023 1:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.barnard.edu/archives-creative-writing

• Utility Menu

• Creative Writing

The vital presence of creative writing in the English Department is reflected by our many distinguished authors who teach our workshops. We offer courses each term in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, screenwriting, playwriting, and television writing. Our workshops are small, usually no more than twelve students, and offer writers an opportunity to focus intensively on one genre. 

Apply to Creative Writing Workshops

Workshops are open by application to Harvard College undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and students from other institutions eligible for cross registration. Submission guidelines for workshops can be found under individual course listings; please do not query instructors.  Review all departmental rules and application instructions before applying.  

Fall 2024 Application Deadline: 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Spring 2025 Application Deadline: TBD

Please visit our course listings for all the Fall 2024 workshops.

Our online submission manager (link below) will open for Fall 2024 applications on Friday, March 22 , 2024.

Students who have questions about the creative writing workshop application process should contact Case Q. Kerns at [email protected] .

Featured Faculty

Teju Cole  is a novelist, critic, and essayist, and is the first Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice. "Among other works, the boundary-crossing author is known for his debut novel “Open City” (2011), whose early admirers included Harvard professor and New Yorker critic James Wood." 

Faculty Bookshelf

Snow hunters by paul yoon (2014).

Open City by Teju Cole (2011)

Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid (2002)

The Autobiography of My Mother: A Novel by Jamaica Kincaid (1996)

Creative Writing Workshops

• Spring 2024

English CACD. The Art of Criticism

Instructor: Maggie Doherty Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

This course will consider critical writing about art–literary, visual, cinematic, musical, etc.—as an art in its own right. We will read and discuss criticism from a wide variety of publications, paying attention to the ways outlets and audience shape critical work. The majority of our readings will be from the last few years and will include pieces by Joan Acocella, Andrea Long Chu, Jason Farago, and Carina del Valle Schorske. Students will write several short writing assignments (500-1000 words), including a straight review, during the first half of the semester and share them with peers. During the second half of the semester, each student will write and workshop a longer piece of criticism about a work of art or an artist of their choosing. Students will be expected to read and provide detailed feedback on the work of their peers. Students will revise their longer pieces based on workshop feedback and submit them for the final assignment of the class. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a letter of introduction (1-2 pages) giving a sense of who you are, your writing experience, and your current goals for your writing. Please also describe your relationship to the art forms and/or genres you're interested in engaging in the course. You may also list any writers or publications whose criticism you enjoy reading. Please also include a 3-5-page writing sample of any kind of prose writing. This could be an academic paper or it could be creative fiction or nonfiction.

English CACW. Advanced Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Paul Yoon TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Advanced fiction workshop for students who have already taken a workshop at Harvard or elsewhere. The goal of the class is to continue your journey as a writer. You will be responsible for participating in discussions on the assigned texts, the workshop, engaging with the work of your colleagues, and revising your work. Supplemental Application Information:   * Please note: previous creative writing workshop experience required. * Please submit ONLY a cover letter telling me your previous creative writing workshop experience, either at Harvard or elsewhere; then tell me something you are passionate about and something you want to be better at; and, lastly, tell me why of all classes you want to take this one this semester. Again, please no writing samples.

English CBBR. Intermediate Poetry: Workshop

Instructor:  Josh Bell   Monday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: Barker 018 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

Initially, students can expect to read, discuss, and imitate the strategies of a wide range of poets writing in English; to investigate and reproduce prescribed forms and poetic structures; and to engage in writing exercises meant to expand the conception of what a poem is and can be. As the course progresses, reading assignments will be tailored on an individual basis, and an increasing amount of time will be spent in discussion of student work. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a portfolio including a letter of interest, ten poems, and a list of classes (taken at Harvard or elsewhere) that seem to have bearing on your enterprise.

English CCEP. Ekphrastic Poetry: Workshop

Instructor: Tracy K. Smith Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: Lamont 401 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site What can a poem achieve when it contemplates or even emulates a work of art in another medium? In this workshop, we'll read and write poems that engage with other art forms--and we'll test out what a foray into another artistic practice allows us to carry back over into the formal methods and behaviors of poetry. With poems by Keats, Rilke, Auden, Hughes, and Brooks, as well as Kevin Young, Evie Shockley, Ama Codjoe and other contemporary voices. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a writing sample of 5-10 poems and an application letter explaining your interest in this course.

English CCFC. Poetry Workshop: Form & Content

Instructor: Tracy K. Smith Tuesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: Sever 112 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this workshop, we’ll look closely at the craft-based choices poets make, and track the effects they have upon what we as readers are made to think and feel. How can implementing similar strategies better prepare us to engage the questions making up our own poetic material? We’ll also talk about content. What can poetry reveal about the ways our interior selves are shaped by public realities like race, class, sexuality, injustice and more? Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26)   

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a writing sample of 5-10 poems and an application letter explaining your interest in this course.

English CCIJ. Intermediate Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Jesse McCarthy Thursday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: Barker 269 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This is an intermediate course in the art of writing literary fiction. Previous experience with workshopping writing is encouraged but not required. The emphasis of the course will be learning how to read literature as a writer, with special attention given to the short story, novella, or short novel. We will read these works from the perspective of the writer as craftsperson and of the critic seeking in good faith to understand and describe a new aesthetic experience. We will be concerned foremost with how literary language works, with describing the effects of different kinds of sentences, different uses of genre, tone, and other rhetorical strategies. Together, we will explore our responses to examples of literature from around the world and from all periods, as well as to the writing you will produce and share with the class. As a member of a writing community, you should be prepared to respectfully read and respond to the work of others—both the work of your peers and that of the published writers that we will explore together. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  This course is by application only but there are no prerequisites for this course and previous experience in a writing workshop is not required . In your application please submit a short letter explaining why you are interested in this class. You might tell me a bit about your relationship to literature, your encounter with a specific author, book, or even a scene or character from a story or novel. Please also include a writing sample of 2-5 pages (5 pages max!) of narrative prose fiction.

English CCFS. Fiction Workshop

Instructor: Teju Cole Spring 2024: Tuesday, 6:00-8:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD This reading and writing intensive workshop is for students who want to learn to write literary fiction. The goal of the course would be for each student to produce two polished short stories. Authors on the syllabus will probably include James Joyce, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Diane Williams.

Supplemental Application Information:   Please submit a cover letter saying what you hope to get out of the workshop. In the cover letter, mention three works of fiction that matter to you and why. In addition, submit a 400–500 word sample of your fiction; the sample can be self-contained or a section of a longer work.

English CLPG. Art of Sportswriting

Instructor: Louisa Thomas Spring 2024: Tuesday, 9:00-11:45am | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

In newsrooms, the sports section is sometimes referred to as the “toy department” -- frivolous and unserious, unlike the stuff of politics, business, and war. In this course, we will take the toys seriously. After all, for millions of people, sports and other so-called trivial pursuits (video games, chess, children’s games, and so on) are a source of endless fascination. For us, they will be a source of stories about human achievements and frustrations. These stories can involve economic, social, and political issues. They can draw upon history, statistics, psychology, and philosophy. They can be reported or ruminative, formally experimental or straightforward, richly descriptive or tense and spare. They can be fun. Over the course of the semester, students will read and discuss exemplary profiles, essays, articles, and blog posts, while also writing and discussing their own. While much (but not all) of the reading will come from the world of sports, no interest in or knowledge about sports is required; our focus will be on writing for a broad audience.  Supplemental Application Information:  To apply, please write a letter describing why you want to take the course and what you hope to get out of it. Include a few examples of websites or magazines you like to read, and tell me briefly about one pursuit -- football, chess, basketball, ballet, Othello, crosswords, soccer, whatever -- that interests you and why.

English CALR. Advanced Screenwriting: Workshop

Instructor: Musa Syeed Spring 2024: Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBA Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

The feature-length script is an opportunity to tell a story on a larger scale, and, therefore, requires additional preparation. In this class, we will move from writing a pitch, to a synopsis, to a treatment/outline, to the first 10 pages, to the first act of a feature screenplay. We will analyze produced scripts and discuss various elements of craft, including research, writing layered dialogue, world-building, creating an engaging cast of characters. As an advanced class, we will also look at ways both mainstream and independent films attempt to subvert genre and structure. Students will end the semester with a first act (20-30 pages) of their feature, an outline, and strategy to complete the full script.

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a 3-5 page writing sample. Screenplays are preferred, but fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and plays are acceptable as well. Also, please write a short note to introduce yourself. Include a couple films/filmmakers that have inspired you, your goals for the class, as well as any themes/subject matter/ideas you might be interested in exploring in your writing for film.

English CNFR. Creative Nonfiction: Workshop

Instructor: Darcy Frey Fall 2024: Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students. Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

Whether it takes the form of literary journalism, essay, memoir, or environmental writing, creative nonfiction is a powerful genre that allows writers to break free from the constraints commonly associated with nonfiction prose and reach for the breadth of thought and feeling usually accomplished only in fiction: the narration of a vivid story, the probing of a complex character, the argument of an idea, or the evocation of a place. Students will work on several short assignments to hone their mastery of the craft, then write a longer piece that will be workshopped in class and revised at the end of the term. We will take instruction and inspiration from published authors such as Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Ariel Levy, Alexander Chee, and Virginia Woolf. This is a workshop-style class intended for undergraduate and graduate students at all levels of experience. No previous experience in English Department courses is required. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:   Please write a substantive letter of introduction describing who you are as writer at the moment and where you hope to take your writing; what experience you may have had with creative/literary nonfiction; what excites you about nonfiction in particular; and what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Additionally, please submit 3-5 pages of creative/literary nonfiction (essay, memoir, narrative journalism, etc, but NOT academic writing) or, if you have not yet written much nonfiction, an equal number of pages of narrative fiction.

English CKR. Introduction to Playwriting: Workshop

Instructor: Sam Marks TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students This workshop is an introduction to writing for the stage through intensive reading and in-depth written exercises. Each student will explore the fundamentals and possibilities of playwriting by generating short scripts and completing a one act play with an eye towards both experimental and traditional narrative styles. Readings will examine various ways of creating dramatic art and include work from contemporary playwrights such as Ayad Aktar, Clare Barron, Aleshea Harris, Young Jean Lee, and Taylor Mac, as well established work from Edward Albbe, Caryl Churchill, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Harold Pinter. Supplemental Application Information:  No experience in writing the dramatic form is necessary. Please submit a 5-10 page writing sample (preferably a play or screenplay, but all genres are acceptable and encouraged). Also, please write a few sentences about a significant theatrical experience (a play read or seen) and how it affected you.

English CACF. Get Real: The Art of Community-Based Film

Instructor: Musa Syeed Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 student Course Site

“I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us,” the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami said, “unless it’s inside a frame.” For our communities confronting invisibility and erasure, there’s an urgent need for new frames. In this workshop, we’ll explore a community-engaged approach to documentary and fiction filmmaking, as we seek to see our world more deeply. We’ll begin with screenings, craft exercises, and discussions around authorship and social impact. Then we each will write, develop, and shoot a short film over the rest of the semester, building off of intentional community engagement. Students will end the class with written and recorded materials for a rough cut. Basic equipment and technical training will be provided.

Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a brief letter explaining why you're interested to take this class. Please also discuss what participants/communities you might be interested in engaging with for your filmmaking projects. For your writing sample, please submit 3-5 pages of your creative work from any genre (screenwriting, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc.)

English CAFR. Advanced Fiction Workshop: Writing this Present Life

Instructor: Claire Messud Thursday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Intended for students with prior fiction-writing and workshop experience, this course will concentrate on structure, execution and revision. Exploring various strands of contemporary and recent literary fiction – writers such as Karl Ove Knausgaard, Rachel Cusk, Chimamanda Adichie, Douglas Stuart, Ocean Vuong, etc – we will consider how fiction works in our present moment, with emphasis on a craft perspective. Each student will present to the class a published fiction that has influenced them. The course is primarily focused on the discussion of original student work, with the aim of improving both writerly skills and critical analysis. Revision is an important component of this class: students will workshop two stories and a revision of one of these. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Sunday, April 7)

Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit 3-5 pages of prose fiction, along with a substantive letter of introduction. I’d like to know why you’re interested in the course; what experience you’ve had writing, both in previous workshops and independently; what your literary goals and ambitions are. Please tell me about some of your favorite narratives – fiction, non-fiction, film, etc: why they move you, and what you learn from them.

English CAKV. Fiction Workshop: Writing from the First-Person Point of View

Instructor:  Andrew Krivak Tuesday, 9:00-11:45 1m | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This course is a workshop intended for students who are interested in writing longer form narratives from the first-person point of view. The “I” at the center of any novel poses a perspective that is all at once imaginatively powerful and narratively problematic, uniquely insightful and necessarily unreliable. We will read from roughly twelve novels written in the first-person, from Marilynne Robinson and W.G. Sebald, to Valeria Luiselli and Teju Cole, and ask questions (among others) of why this form, why this style? And, as a result, what is lost and what is realized in the telling? Primarily, however, students will write. Our goal will be to have a student’s work read and discussed twice in class during the semester. I am hoping to see at least 35-40 pages of a project —at any level of completion—at the end of term.  Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a substantive letter telling me why you’re interested in taking this class, what writers (classical and contemporary) you admire and why, and if there’s a book you have read more than once, a movie you have seen more than once, a piece of music you listen to over and over, not because you have to but because you want to. Students of creative nonfiction are also welcome to apply.

English CCSS. Fiction Workshop: The Art of the Short Story

Instructor: Laura van den Berg Tuesday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This course will serve as an introduction to the fundamentals of writing fiction, with an emphasis on the contemporary short story. How can we set about creating “big” worlds in compact spaces? What unique doors can the form of the short story open? The initial weeks will focus on exploratory exercises and the study of published short stories and craft essays. Later, student work will become the primary text as the focus shifts to workshop discussion. Authors on the syllabus will likely include Ted Chiang, Lauren Groff, Carmen Maria Machado, and Octavia Butler. This workshop welcomes writers of all levels of experience. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, April 7) Supplemental Application Information:  Please submit a letter of introduction. I’d like to know a little about why you are drawn to studying fiction; what you hope to get out of the workshop and what you hope to contribute; and one thing you are passionate about outside writing / school. Please also include a very brief writing sample (2-3 pages). The sample can be in any genre (it does not have to be from a work of fiction). 

Write an Honors Creative Thesis

Students may apply to write a senior thesis or senior project in creative writing, although only English concentrators can be considered. Students submit applications in early March of their junior year, including first-term juniors who are out of phase. The creative writing faculty considers the proposal, along with the student's overall performance in creative writing and other English courses, and notifies students about its decision in early mid-late March. Those applications are due, this coming year, on TBA . 

Students applying for a creative writing thesis or project must have completed at least one course in creative writing at Harvard before they apply. No student is guaranteed acceptance. It is strongly suggested that students acquaint themselves with the requirements and guidelines well before the thesis application is due. The creative writing director must approve any exceptions to the requirements, which must be made in writing by Monday, February 7, 2022. Since the creative writing thesis and project are part of the English honors program, acceptance to write a creative thesis is conditional upon the student continuing to maintain a 3.40 concentration GPA. If a student’s concentration GPA drops below 3.40 after the spring of the junior year, the student may not be permitted to continue in the honors program.

Joint concentrators may apply to write creative theses, but we suggest students discuss the feasibility of the project well before applications are due. Not all departments are open to joint creative theses.

Students who have questions about the creative writing thesis should contact the program’s Director, Sam Marks .

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Secret meetings, social chatter: How Columbia students sparked a nationwide revolt

When police raided a protester encampment at Columbia University last week, the students at Yale were ready, tracking every minute of the chaos that followed with their smartphones on social media.

If students at the New York City Ivy League school were going to risk arrest, they would, too. By the next morning, Yale demonstrators had pitched their own tents. On a Zoom call that day, more than 200 students from dozens of other colleges across the country were strategizing on how they could replicate Columbia’s protest.

“We talked about what it was like to recruit people and join, and what it meant to stand in solidarity together, and what it would look like if these camps started popping up everywhere,” said Soph Askanase, 21-year-old junior at Barnard College who was arrested at Columbia.

What followed was the start of what historians now call one of the most consequential student uprisings the nation has seen in recent times. Though officials hope the tensions calm when classes end next month, the protests have become a crisis for college administrators struggling to rein in demonstrations while juggling competing demands to combat antisemitic rhetoric and permit students’ right to free speech.

“I think the ivory tower stands on shaky ground,” said Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. “Its foundations are far more fragile and vulnerable than it might seem, and there are big cracks in the facade.”

Though the demonstrations have made headlines across the globe in recent days, they are the culmination of months of activism and earlier tensions on campus. Protests began on college campuses within days of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Students then started organizing around a particular demand: university divestment from weapons manufacturers. Their activism steadily escalated throughout the spring, as students employed increasingly aggressive tactics after saying they got little or no response from administrators.

The growing uprising has been supercharged by social media and smartphones, which allowed students to quickly communicate with one another and replicate tactics in ways unthinkable in earlier university movements.

Historians like David Cortright, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, say the demonstrations already compare to several other large protest movements over the last 60 years, including the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstrations over corporate greed.

But unlike the protests of decades past, college administrators have fewer tools at their disposal to assuage demonstrator demands. Experts say student requests for divestment are not only impractical but also are likely to yield little if any real benefit. More broadly, the students could face a challenge in trying to build alliances. Some would-be demonstrators have been deterred by tactics and chants some view as antisemitic.

“Dr. Martin Luther King used to talk about ‘creative tension,’ where surface calm gets disturbed and the powers that be have to pay attention,” said Cortright, who is also a visiting scholar at Cornell University this year. “But in terms of what counts as effectiveness, one of the cardinal rules is to build a broad coalition and don’t alienate potential supporters. … You don’t come up with a slogan that turns away potential allies.”

‘We’ve never lived in normal times’

For students attending college today, life has been defined by waves of upheaval.

Columbia’s student body president, Teji Vijayakumar, notes that graduating seniors like herself were entering elementary school during the Occupy Wall Street protests, middle school during student walkouts over gun control and former president Donald Trump’s executive order barring travel from some Muslim-majority countries, and were in high school when the Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted.

Vijayakumar recalls being 13 years old and writing her emergency contacts on her arm when she attended a women’s march in Washington.

“I think a difference with older generations is that for them college was a coming of age, whereas my class started elementary school in the financial crisis, started high school in the Trump presidency, and started college in the pandemic,” Vijayakumar said. “We’ve never lived in normal times.”

When the war in Gaza broke out, their universities became a new front line.

At Brown University, protests against Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas erupted almost immediately. Police arrested 61 people at two demonstrations last fall, including Ariela Rosenzweig, a senior. Similar demonstrations were simultaneously taking place at other colleges.

Rosenzweig said the campus demonstrations were organic, student-led initiatives anchored in a demand that Brown divest from weapons manufacturers. Rosenzweig said students stayed in contact with their peers at other schools, a process often coordinated through the national Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

“We all have our phones, and we all know each other,” Rosenzweig said. “We have friends at other schools, and the youth of our country feels ... our institutions, whether they be our government or our universities, cannot be complicit with occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

The push for divestment was also gaining traction at other elite universities, including Columbia. Administrators there suspended chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in November after the groups held an unauthorized walkout in support of the Palestinian territories.

College protests over Gaza war

The suspensions only made students want to protest more, Askanase, the junior at Barnard, recalled. Within days, students formed a coalition called “CU Apartheid Divest,” a callback to the successful student protest movement that forced Columbia to divest from apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980s. It quickly garnered support from more than 90 campus groups.

“We realized the administration still wasn’t listening to us, no matter how loud we screamed or how much we begged,” Askanase said. “We realized an escalation was necessary.”

The night before announcing the new coalition, Askanase and friends stayed up until 4 a.m. drafting an 1,800-word manifesto that ran on Nov. 14 in the Columbia Spectator.

University officials “underestimate our resolve,” the students wrote. “We will not rest until Columbia divests from apartheid Israel, Palestinians are free, and liberation is achieved for all oppressed people worldwide.”

In the following weeks, students kept protesting — holding some kind of demonstration at least once a month, Askanase said, from public “art builds” to “die-ins.” During winter break, the activists kept in touch on video calls. And when they got back for the spring semester, they began meeting in off-campus apartments, fearing detection by administrators.

At some meetings, before digging into pita dipped in za’atar and Palestinian olive oil, students placed their phones and laptops in a pile in another room, to guard against leaks.

They were already at work at something bigger, and they wanted it to stay secret.

Protests were ramping up at other universities, too. In February, Rosenzweig and 20 other Brown University students held an eight-day hunger strike to press their demands. She said students came up with idea after discovering how Brown University students had held a hunger strike to protest apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.

“We saw ourselves in the legacy of those student protests,” said Rosenzweig, who is Jewish.

At Columbia, students were also drawing inspiration from the past. Askanase said they researched student protesters who set up encampments in 1968 and 1985 at Columbia against the Vietnam War and apartheid South Africa, respectively. They also read about the Black Panthers, as well as the words of writer Angela Davis.

Then they got to work on the more practical preparations: ordering tents, food, masks and medical supplies, sketching out responses to probable arrests and suspensions — and figuring out where occupiers would use the bathroom.

“We ordered little camping bathroom tents that are not the nicest, but they do the trick,” Askanase said.

On April 14, the students finalized their date: The occupation would begin three days later, when Columbia’s president would be out of town testifying before Congress. The demonstrators figured Columbia would have a harder time coordinating a response with the president gone. Plus, they hoped to disrupt the university’s preparations for graduation.

At 8 the night before go time, Askanase sat down to paint a large banner declaring the tents a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Later, student protesters spaced out in small pockets across campus, clutching their tents and supplies and trading texted updates on the positions of security guards.

They stayed huddled, waiting in the cold to act. Askanase re-watched a YouTube video giving instructions on how to set up a tent one more time.

‘Way more complicated’

The protests are loosely organized, with no central leaders and one primary demand: that colleges disinvest from weapons manufacturers or companies that do extensive business with Israel.

At Brown, students have prepared a 50-page manual on how to do that and say it could be modeled after the university’s steps to divest from tobacco in 2003 or fossil fuels in 2020. Brown also divested from companies that did business with Sudan in 2006 over the crisis in Darfur.

“This new generation quite frankly is not going to allow the blatant misuse of our tax money,” said Nour Abaherah, a graduate student who participated in the hunger strike.

But how universities invest their money makes disinvestment complicated, said Chris Marsicano, a Davidson College assistant professor of educational studies who researches endowments and finance.

First, it’s impossible to know just how and where universities’ endowments are invested: Schools are notoriously closemouthed about it, revealing as little as they can. Disclosing investments can lead to complications large and small, Marsicano said, from the embarrassment of discovering that a company targeted for investment directly competes with a company owned by one of the university’s trustees — to the possibility that a university disclosing its decision to sell or buy stock could affect the price of that stock.

“When endowment funds are this large, we’re talking tens of billions of dollars, there are legal and practical reasons not to show exactly, explicitly, what they’re invested in,” Marsicano said.

Many of the student groups are demanding an end to this secretiveness. For example, students at Columbia are asking that the university offer “complete transparency for all … financial investments” — an unlikely prospect.

Divestment, meanwhile, is practically impossible, experts said. Universities probably have very few if any direct ties to companies that are Israeli based or weapons manufacturers; most of those relationships would come through index funds.

Mariscano said it can be extremely difficult to figure out what companies are represented in a large index fund — or what companies the fund may be indirectly linked to. Israel is a hot spot right now for solar energy, innovative climate change solutions and pharmaceuticals.

Mintz, the University of Texas history professor, said the complications associated with divestment is one reason college administrators have no easy solutions for ending the protests. In the 1960s and 1970s, students offered up solutions that were more actionable, he noted, like nudging administrators to create an African American students program.

“If students demanded a Black Studies program, you could set up a Black Studies program. And it was easy for [college] leadership to denounce the Vietnam War,” Mintz said. “All of this is way more complicated.”

After the raid

A day after pitching their tents, Columbia administrators called the New York Police Department to the campus, saying students were breaking multiple university rules, had been suspended and were trespassing.

As police moved in on the Columbia encampment, Askanase said students sat in two concentric circles, chanted “Disclose, Divest!” and sang “classic protest songs.” Askanase then watched as, one by one, student protesters were marched onto a bus and taken to jail.

When Askanase was released hours later, a friend shared some unexpected news: Protesters had already made a new encampment on campus.

“It was the most beautiful moment,” Askanase recalled. “I was so honored and in shock. ... I had no clue our student body would stand up and support us like that.”

What happened next recalls the way protests spread in 1968 , when Columbia students seized five buildings to protest the Vietnam War — and fueled student antiwar activity nationwide that ultimately shut down hundreds of campuses, said Thai Jones, a Columbia University lecturer who studies radical social movements. He cautioned that it’s too soon to say whether the pro-Palestinian demonstrations will equal the firepower of ’68.

But “it proves the very close connections between student movements on different campuses, and the power of media to show incredibly dramatic images of students being arrested that can really spark a mass movement,” Jones said.

In 2024, that includes social media platforms that did not exist in the 1960s: Apps such as Instagram, TikTok and X. Such sites allow students to immediately spread glossy, professional-looking pictures and videos of their activities, Jones noted, spurring admiration and emulation.

At Yale, by the time news of the Columbia arrests began ricocheting across 23-year-old Adam Nussbaum’s X feed, the occupation was already a definite “go,” he said. But the number of prospective occupiers — and bystander supporters — swelled dramatically as friend networks between the two Ivy League schools exploded with alarmed texts, DMs and calls.

“A lot of us just know people at Columbia, so people were talking to their friends,” said Nussbaum, a junior. “It all happened with so much organic energy.”

Officials in New York contend, nonetheless, that there is more to the protests there than might meet the eye. After the Columbia arrests, New York Mayor Eric Adams compared the situation to the challenges New York police faced during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2022. Back then, he said, disruptive actors came into New York intent on “tearing our city apart.”

“We strongly believe that is the case right now,” he said at a news conference.

Since the protests erupted, there have been newspaper and social media reports of the harassment of Jewish students, behavior including chants of “from the river to the sea” — a slogan some find deeply offensive, interpreting it as a call to annihilate Israel — and one Jewish Yale student’s allegation she was poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag.

Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a post on X that he spent an afternoon walking around Columbia and determined that “Jewish students have been explicitly threatened, increasingly menaced and physically attacked.”

“It’s extremely hostile,” said Rotem Weiss, 27, a Jewish and Israeli student at Columbia. “It’s beyond anything I have ever imagined that I would experience here.”

Protesting students at encampments nationwide have repeatedly denied any such harassing behavior, often attributing it to outsiders.

Many college professors, alumni and civil rights leaders, meanwhile, have condemned police for moving aggressively against the campus demonstrators. They say fears of external agitators are overblown because the protests are mostly peaceful.

“I think the signs of a healthy democracy is where you see a lot of protests,” said Greg Jobin-Leeds, an expert on social movements. “Right now, we are seeing the limiting of that democratic state and it’s very, very concerning.”

A generation changed

Although summer break is rapidly approaching, student protesters say they will use the time away from campus to figure out ways their movement can return with even more force in the fall.

“This student movement is of the utmost importance,” Rosenzweig, the Brown student, said. “I don’t see people backing down.”

There will be other venues for students to express their discontent in the months ahead. The Republican and Democratic nominating conventions are scheduled for this summer, and both expect to draw a large number of protesters. Thus far, students have been mum on whether they plan to join those demonstrations.

Overall, students are offering few specifics on their next steps, saying they wanted to avoid alerting university officials to their plans. At Yale, though, the students who occupied Beinecke Plaza have now announced that they are morphing their movement to a broader “Occupy Yale” campaign, which — in addition to divestment from weapons manufacturers — is also demanding the university increase its investments in the New Haven local area.

Meantime, as the protests forge a chaotic end to the school year in many places, some students just wish they would stop.

Cameron Ofogh, a 22-year-old junior at George Washington University, isn’t one of those protesting — like the vast majority of his student body, he noted. Instead, Ofogh watched on Thursday as a few hundred students, some from other D.C.-area schools, set up roughly 30 tents to form a pro-Palestinian encampment. George Washington enrolls 26,000 students.

Ofogh said he doesn’t believe campus occupations and chants of “from the river to the sea” represent an effective way to have a substantive discussion about the war. He respects that people on both sides of the conflict have strong opinions. But he wishes they would actually start debating them, rather than chanting slogans or hiding in dorm rooms.

“They’re not hearing each other out; they’re not having civic engagement,” Ofogh said. “And I think this is happening because colleges have failed to teach students to talk to each other.”

By contrast, Nussbaum of Yale sees the growing web of protests and encampments as evidence of students’ eloquence — and their power to change the world.

“It cracks open what is possible,” he said.

Alisa Shodiyev Kaff contributed to this report.

Claudia Looi

Touring the Top 10 Moscow Metro Stations

By Claudia Looi 2 Comments

Komsomolskaya metro station looks like a museum. It has vaulted ceilings and baroque decor.

Hidden underground, in the heart of Moscow, are historical and architectural treasures of Russia. These are Soviet-era creations – the metro stations of Moscow.

Our guide Maria introduced these elaborate metro stations as “the palaces for the people.” Built between 1937 and 1955, each station holds its own history and stories. Stalin had the idea of building beautiful underground spaces that the masses could enjoy. They would look like museums, art centers, concert halls, palaces and churches. Each would have a different theme. None would be alike.

The two-hour private tour was with a former Intourist tour guide named Maria. Maria lived in Moscow all her life and through the communist era of 60s to 90s. She has been a tour guide for more than 30 years. Being in her 60s, she moved rather quickly for her age. We traveled and crammed with Maria and other Muscovites on the metro to visit 10 different metro stations.

Arrow showing the direction of metro line 1 and 2

Moscow subways are very clean

To Maria, every street, metro and building told a story. I couldn’t keep up with her stories. I don’t remember most of what she said because I was just thrilled being in Moscow.   Added to that, she spilled out so many Russian words and names, which to one who can’t read Cyrillic, sounded so foreign and could be easily forgotten.

The metro tour was the first part of our all day tour of Moscow with Maria. Here are the stations we visited:

1. Komsomolskaya Metro Station  is the most beautiful of them all. Painted yellow and decorated with chandeliers, gold leaves and semi precious stones, the station looks like a stately museum. And possibly decorated like a palace. I saw Komsomolskaya first, before the rest of the stations upon arrival in Moscow by train from St. Petersburg.

2. Revolution Square Metro Station (Ploshchad Revolyutsii) has marble arches and 72 bronze sculptures designed by Alexey Dushkin. The marble arches are flanked by the bronze sculptures. If you look closely you will see passersby touching the bronze dog's nose. Legend has it that good luck comes to those who touch the dog's nose.

Touch the dog's nose for good luck. At the Revolution Square station

Revolution Square Metro Station

3. Arbatskaya Metro Station served as a shelter during the Soviet-era. It is one of the largest and the deepest metro stations in Moscow.

Arbatskaya Metro Station

4. Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station was built in 1935 and named after the Russian State Library. It is located near the library and has a big mosaic portrait of Lenin and yellow ceramic tiles on the track walls.

Lenin's portrait at the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station

5. Kievskaya Metro Station was one of the first to be completed in Moscow. Named after the capital city of Ukraine by Kiev-born, Nikita Khruschev, Stalin's successor.

Kievskaya Metro Station

6. Novoslobodskaya Metro Station  was built in 1952. It has 32 stained glass murals with brass borders.

Novoslobodskaya metro station

7. Kurskaya Metro Station was one of the first few to be built in Moscow in 1938. It has ceiling panels and artwork showing Soviet leadership, Soviet lifestyle and political power. It has a dome with patriotic slogans decorated with red stars representing the Soviet's World War II Hall of Fame. Kurskaya Metro Station is a must-visit station in Moscow.

Ceiling panel and artworks at Kurskaya Metro Station

8. Mayakovskaya Metro Station built in 1938. It was named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky. This is one of the most beautiful metro stations in the world with 34 mosaics painted by Alexander Deyneka.

Mayakovskaya station

One of the over 30 ceiling mosaics in Mayakovskaya metro station

9. Belorusskaya Metro Station is named after the people of Belarus. In the picture below, there are statues of 3 members of the Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II. The statues were sculpted by Sergei Orlov, S. Rabinovich and I. Slonim.

10. Teatralnaya Metro Station (Theatre Metro Station) is located near the Bolshoi Theatre.

Teatralnaya Metro Station decorated with porcelain figures .

Taking the metro's escalator at the end of the tour with Maria the tour guide.

Have you visited the Moscow Metro? Leave your comment below.

January 15, 2017 at 8:17 am

An excellent read! Thanks for much for sharing the Russian metro system with us. We're heading to Moscow in April and exploring the metro stations were on our list and after reading your post, I'm even more excited to go visit them. Thanks again 🙂

December 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Hi, do you remember which tour company you contacted for this tour?

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Turn Your Curiosity Into Discovery

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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The Fashion Influencers of the French Revolution

“Liberty Equality Fashion” explores radical shifts in fashion that embodied the ideas of the French Revolution and the women who led the charge.

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By Dina Gachman

Most days, Anne Higonnet is able to keep her cool. She’s a distinguished professor of art history at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim and Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellowships. She chooses her words, her tone and her clothing carefully. One day in 2017, though, as Higonnet was quietly working at the Morgan Library & Museum, decorum flew out the windows. She did something slightly unscholarly: She yelped.

“I began to hop up and down, which is a little bit rude,” Higonnet said. “Everyone is polite and quiet in these reading rooms, but inside, all researchers have that loud moment when you’re just so excited. I went to the librarians and said, ‘I’m so sorry I made so much noise, but you have something you don’t even know that you have.’”

That something was an extremely rare and complete set of fashion plates from the Journal des Dames et des Modes, a pre-Vogue, pre-Harper’s Bazaar magazine that launched in Paris in 1797, amid the French Revolution.

The publication documented a brief but crucial period in which clothing, especially women’s clothing, became an unprecedented force of cultural and social change. Corsets, heavy wigs and other restrictive sartorial norms were tossed off to make way for flowing, transparent dresses, handbags as statement pieces and toucan feathers sewn into white crepe dresses — a look that Joséphine Bonaparte, future empress of France, wore to a ball.

The discovery of the plates shed light on the role of fashion in the French Revolution, and on the contributions of the three audacious women who led the charge — a story that Higonnet tells in her new book, “Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution.”

Higonnet’s three muses are Bonaparte, Térézia Tallien and Juliette Récamier. These close friends broke rules, cut their hair short and chose simple muslin dresses cinched with madras scarfs instead of the frills and poufs that defined Marie Antoinette ’s rococo taste.

“History handed me three incredible style leaders who had such amazing personal stories,” Higonnet said of Bonaparte, Tallien and Récamier. “At that point, it became about wanting to tell the true story of revolutionary fashion but also wanting everyone to know that the fastest change in clothing history ever had been led by women.”

Years earlier, Higonnet had pushed back against the idea of going into academia and spending long hours hunched over books. Her father, Patrice Higonnet, is a French historian who told his young daughter tales of the French Revolution as bedtime stories. Higonnet loved learning about her heritage, but she didn’t view it as a calling.

“Like all kids, there’s a moment when you really react against your parents,” Higonnet said. “I thought, there is no way I’m going to become an academic.”

Instead, she decided to learn a trade. She loved seeing “accurate and evocative” period clothing in movies and theater productions, so she studied and practiced theatrical costume-making during her undergraduate years at Harvard, only to find that she couldn’t land a job. Higonnet applied to some art history Ph.D. programs “as a backup,” and wound up at Yale. She was offered a teaching job during her first semester. Ten minutes into her first discussion section, she realized how much she loved it. “I guess the fates were pushing me that way,” she said.

While she was writing “Liberty Equality Fashion,” Higonnet came up with the idea to teach a class called “Clothing” and treat the study of fashion as a legitimate academic arm of art history. She thought she would need a room for about 25 students. Then pandemic lockdowns happened, and “all pedagogical bets were off.” In the first semester, taught over video, there were about 130 students.

Now, the class that Higonnet thought of as an “insane experiment” is one of the most popular classes at Columbia and Barnard. Her lessons are never dull, and at times a little funny. In one lecture, she compared 16th-century codpieces to a modern codpiece created by designer Thom Browne for his spring 2020 collection. Later, she pointed out an illustration of a man wearing one of the fashions of his day. “Are these not the shortiest little fancy pants?” Higonnet asked her students. Her glee over fancy pants and codpieces, her yelps over fashion plates in a research library, point to a deep love of the history of clothing, and the stories behind the styles.

Higonnet said she spent “thousands of hours” engaged in research for her book, which, at times, reads like a juicy (but accurate) historical novel about three friends living during the Reign of Terror — a time of mass executions, bloodshed, and imprisonment — who viewed clothing as an expression of autonomy, democracy and fierce rebellion.

“All three women had nothing left to lose after the Terror,” Higonnet wrote. “Desper­ation opened their minds. They would not be defeated. They would do more than survive. They would make the most of what history had dealt them.”

Each faced powerful hurdles to thriving, even surviving, Higonnet said: Tallien (a beautiful and sexually liberated “It Girl” of the French Revolution) had been imprisoned and sentenced to death; Récamier was forced into a sham marriage; and Bonaparte had also been imprisoned and ridiculed by society.

Those tumultuous years were also “a time for the inconceiv­able alternatives,” Higonnet said. “It was this moment where people were willing to really change how they lived, and I find that so heartening about humanity. These three woman overcame so much to be so creative. They gave every other woman a chance to be free.”

Higonnet wanted the fashion plates at the Morgan to be widely accessible, so she enlisted a few graduate students to help her digitize them and put them online. Her former Ph.D. student Barthélemy Glama, who is now adviser to the president of the Louvre, worked on that project. He observed Higonnet’s research and writing process, during which she “excavated thousands of archival files” at museums and research libraries in New York, Paris and Kyoto.

At the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, Siddhartha V. Shah, another former Ph.D. student who was then the museum’s curator of South Asian art, showed Higonnet Bengali muslin and Kashmiri shawls that influenced the styles of her three muses in the 18th century. When describing these materials in the book, Higonnet writes, “It took two-man teams eighteen months to make an average shawl, three years to make a superlative one. The finest could be pulled through a finger ring.”

The brief window that allowed Bonaparte, Récamier and Tallien so much agency when it came to style ended abruptly in 1804, when Napoleon crowned himself emperor of France. In so doing, he brought back pre-revolutionary laws and established a code in which wives could not own property or buy anything without a husband’s permission.

In a chapter called “Order in the Wardrobe,” Higonnet writes that Napoleon jailed a milliner who made a bonnet for Joséphine Bonaparte because he didn’t agree with her price (She had the milliner set free). He also stained one of his wife’s gowns with ink because he wanted her to wear something more to his liking.

For his coronation, the costume he forced Joséphine Bonaparte to wear — a heavy skirt “weighted with emphatically French gold-metal-thread embroidery and a dense red velvet train” — was a powerful symbol of the end of an era. A light muslin dress was out of the question. To top off her royal look, as dictated by her husband, Higonnet writes that “a bulbous tiara fenced in her head.”

Despite these changes, the three women held onto their independence in whatever ways they could, and Higonnet likens their contributions to breaking style boundaries to people like Harry Styles today, or fashion influencers who can turn a look into a trend with a click.

Glama, Higonnet’s former student, said that hearing her frame the three women in her book this way helps current students contextualize the impact they had during a time when women’s bodies, actions and styles were controlled and scrutinized by those in power. “You realize that the role they played is actually a very political and cultural one,” Gama said, “and one that is powerful and meaningful.”

The stories of the book’s three muses are fascinating, and, for Higonnet, the revolution in clothing ushered in by these women might shed light on ways we can tackle issues impacting the world today — issues related to sustainability, fair trade, cultural appropriation and gender identity.

“I think one of the reasons I’m really fascinated by clothing is that I sort of look sideways at the fashion industry,” Higonnet said. “I’m fascinated by it but I’m not always living inside the fashion industry’s rules, so I’m particularly impressed by its power. Academics love to be that way. On the edge of institutions, looking in.”

Dina Gachman is an Austin-based writer. More about Dina Gachman

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