Arts & Humanities

This page features Columbia faculty and research related to the arts and humanities, and highlights cultural events happening at Columbia's four campuses. 

A collage of arts and humanities images

A New History of World War II

Paul Thomas Chamberlin’s book, Scorched Earth, recasts the conflict as a brutal struggle for survival among declining and ascendant imperial powers.

Kate Dehler (Photo courtesy of the Bob Moog Foundation)
Kate Dehler (Photo courtesy of the Bob Moog Foundation)
How Robert Moog Launched Music into the Electronic Age

Sixty years ago, the Columbia-trained inventor introduced a keyboard synthesizer that would change the musical soundscape. 

iRideArusha
iRideArusha
4 Columbia Travel Pros to Guide Your Next Adventure

Biking? Driving? Walking? Trekking? Check out these travel companies.

Illustration of Thames River Lighthouse,
Jim Lammers
Illustration of Thames River Lighthouse, Jim Lammers
An Artist’s Tour of Great Lakes Lighthouses

Jim Lammers (GSAPP'70) uses the freehand drawing skills he honed at Columbia to capture whimsical views of waterside structures.

Exhibitions

GSAPP end of year show
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation End-of-Year Show

Explore GSAPP’s commitment to critically expand the spectrum of the possible through the work of the school’s researchers, faculty, and students, with over 1,000 student works. 

Show Me Your Cards exhibition, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Show Me Your Cards Exhibition, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Show Me Your Cards: Communicating In The Days Of Yore

This exhibition in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library shows that--before texts, tweets, and swipes--there were calling cards, cartes de visite, and dance cards: the original social media of centuries past.

Caption: Tony Cokes, SM BNGRZ 1+2 (2021), video still; courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali; Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna; Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles; and Electronic Arts Intermix.
Caption: Tony Cokes, SM BNGRZ 1+2 (2021), video still; courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali; Felix Gaudlitz, Vienna; Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles; and Electronic Arts Intermix.
Homage: Queer lineages on video

This exhibition at the Wallach Gallery presents works by seven contemporary artists who use moving images to pay tribute to cultural figures and histories that have been formative, if often (but not always) overlooked. 

More Arts News