“Who do you want to talk to?”
A Conversation with Tami Navarro on Race and Gender within Neoliberal Financialization Virgin Capital: Race, Gender, and Financialization in the US Virgin Islands, Tami Navarro’s (Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Drew University and former BCRW Associate Director) first book, is an ethnographic exploration of the Economic Development Commission (EDC), a finance agency that encourages […]
Toward an Abolitionist Archival Practice
It was a fall day in September 2021. I was in Barnard College’s library sort of doing homework in my favorite green chair, when my phone buzzed with an email that piqued my interest. The email said that archivists at Barnard had just returned from a trip to New Jersey with a car full of […]
Beyond Housing Injustice: Expanding Community Connection Through Research
Research notes: The interconnectedness of economic greed in the face of housing inaccessibility and environmental disaster Racism and the commodification of housing Hope for Resistance—chronicling women-led Resistance and the Black Power movement Foregrounding the role of Black and women-led movements of resistance in the legacy of housing justice organizing Centering the perspectives of low-income Black […]
This Flame Within: An Interview with Manijeh Moradian
In November, Manijeh Moradian (Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College) published This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press), a new book on the radical organizing efforts of US-based Iranian students in the 1960-70s. The book arrives at an extraordinary moment as Iranians protest the killing of Mahsa […]
Meet our Research Assistants
Student Research Assistants are an integral part of BCRW’s community, providing crucial support to its social justice programming and events. In the 2021-22 academic year, six students worked with BCRW staff and collaborators on a range of projects. These projects include processing the new collection of archives from the Coalition of Women Prisoners, working with […]
BCRW is Hiring a Post Baccalaureate Fellow!
Update as of 1/23/19: BCRW has filled the position of post baccalaureate fellow. BCRW is thrilled to be expanding our team. We’re seeking a post baccalaureate fellow who shares a commitment to intersectional feminist praxis, activist-academic collaborations, and public programming. About BCRW Founded in 1971, the Barnard Center for Research on Women brings together scholars and […]
Thursday 9/28: BCRW Open House for Students
Join BCRW Staff and Research Assistants at the BCRW Open House for undergraduate students of the Barnard/Columbia communities on Thursday 9/28 from 7-9 PM in 101 Barnard Hall. This will be the perfect opportunity to learn how you can get more involved in BCRW’s work and goals as an intersectional feminist center committed to research, scholarship, activism, […]
Courses in the Spring 2017 Harlem Semester Initiative
About the Harlem Semester Organized by the Barnard Center for Research on Women and the Department of Africana Studies and launched in 2016, the Harlem Semester Program is an ambitious public humanities initiative that explores the complexities of Harlem’s social, political, and intellectual histories, its leaders, its culture, and its artists. The curriculum of the […]
Fashioning New Methods of Survival: A Conversation with Alok Vaid-Menon of DarkMatter
Alok Vaid-Menon is one-half of the New York City-based performance duo Darkmatter. The pair, who met while studying at Stanford, have been making waves internationally with their thought-provoking poetry, accessible activism, and spectacular fashion. I was able to talk to Alok about the Internet, deconstructing binaries, and apathy as a political act. Why were you […]
“Taking Up Space and Making Art”: An Interview with Nia King
Nia King is a creative powerhouse whose work expands many different forms of media. King is a podcast producer, writer, zinester and self-publisher, and most importantly an artist and activist. In 2014, King published the collection of interviews Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives and is currently in the process of […]
Honoring Resistance and Survival: The Miss Major-Jay Toole Building Giving Circle
The Miss Major Jay Toole Building for Social Justice (MMJT), located at 147 W. 24th Street, is the birthplace of resistance and home to survival. MMJT houses organizations for and by people of color, centering on the experiences of queer, trans, and gender nonconforming folks, especially those who are low or no-income and homeless. Entering the […]
Digital Translations of Quisqueya
This semester, BCRW will host a plethora of events on transnational feminisms and activism in the Caribbean. Here you will find student-generated content on topics ranging from feminism to political economy on the island of Quisqueya, more commonly known as Hispaniola. I hope that they can serve as resources for research or just getting to know […]
Resources for Accessible Classrooms
BCRW—a collection of students, researchers, professors, activists, and the intellectually curious—is dedicated to enacting the feminist philosophies that compel our research, publications, events, and activism in Barnard and Columbia classrooms. A key and invaluable aspect of engaging feminist pedagogies is striving for accessibility of the classroom and education spaces. In the hope of making Barnard and Columbia […]
Calling all Barnard students: Come work at BCRW!
Applications for the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s fall 2015 Research Assistant positions are OPEN! CLICK HERE TO APPLY! About the Barnard Center for Research on Women: Since our founding in 1971, BCRW has built collaborative feminist activist-academic projects, programs, and publications on subjects ranging from domestic worker organizing to prison abolition, trans feminism to the […]
What We’re Reading at BCRW
Last week, BCRW Program Manager Avi asked me, resignedly and with despair, “Did you see the new #SayHerName? The news of another trans woman of color’s murder?” The body of Shade Schuler, 22-year-old trans woman, had just been found (August 12) in Dallas. In that moment last week, she was the 13th trans person murdered in […]
Getting Real About Allyship
Image from SJWiki, copyrighted but used with Fair Use rationale, see here for details. Each spring, ROOTEd (Respecting Ourselves and Others Through Education) holds a series of events about allyship in social justice, otherwise known as Allies Series. The programming usually consists of an allyship 101 teach-in, a discussion, and a panel featuring activists and community organizers. Having been a ROOTEd […]
Reflections on the BCRW, a Truly Feminist Space
At the end of two years at the BCRW as a research assistant, I am sad to leave such an incredible organization. As I reflect on my time here, I’ve realized that what has been the most exciting and formative part of working at the BCRW has been having the experience to work in a […]
Women's Rights and Transnational Feminisms: Panel Reflection
Contemporarily, aligning with “feminism” is not simply supporting “equity for women.” While this stance might be perceived on a superficial level as the unifying force behind this notion of universal feminism, a more critical approach reveals the ways in which we should not be speaking about feminism, but feminisms. Even within localized Western communities, feminisms […]
Women's Rights and Transnational Feminisms: Panel Reflection
“Most women in Africa do not have any kind of choice” when it comes to strength and resilience according to Amina Mama. During the conversation on Women’s Rights and Transnational Feminisms, themes of listening as a strategy of transnational feminism, leadership and accountability, and transformation through transformative thinking emerged. When thinking about these key issues, […]
Challenging Race as a Genetic Category: A Response to Dorothy Roberts
Race, Gender, and the New Biocitizen video is now available on the BCRW website. “We’re going to start by defining some of the terms that Roberts uses in her book,” I said to a class of my peers last week, “let’s begin with ‘biological race’.” My Critical Race Theory class was discussing Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big […]
Exploring the Academy-Activist Connection: Storytelling & the BCRW 2012 Commencement Day Panel
When I tell someone I work as a student Research Assistant at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the response I often receive is something like, “Sounds great! But exactly what does the Center do?” The diverse role of BCRW as a national conversation-starter, historic intellectual resource, dynamic programmer, and hub for international activism can be hard to articulate. So […]
Connecting Scholarship and Activism as a BCRW Research Assistant
As graduation nears, it is time to admit that I must soon leave BCRW, a place that has come to represent the perfect example of what I wish to do with my life. I remember being very excited to work at BCRW, but not really understanding exactly what sort of activities and projects I would […]