Department of Arts and Humanities

Between Morningside Heights and Harlem, Department of Arts and Humanities anchors Columbia’s intellectual blocks, where theory meets practice. Literature, visual arts, philosophy and history share corridors just behind the library’s towering stacks. Creative writing workshops often overlap with film screenings at 4 pm, when late-day light hits the marble stairwells. The main office sits at 525 W 120th St, New York, NY 10027, a Columbia block before the campus flattens toward Riverside. Public lectures in urban studies and Medieval studies spill into adjacent classrooms, reminding passersby that scholarship still happens in lecture halls. Graduate students cluster near coffee machines; undergrads hurriedly cross campus after morning seminars to grab seats in contemporary art theory before the doors lock at half past the hour. Questions about course enrollment or event rosters reach administrative desks by (212) 678-3469, answered in passing between department mail runs and interdepartmental packet drops. From grants in early American print culture to cross-disciplinary symposia on decolonial aesthetics, handouts and schedules circulate without fanfare. See the sightlines from campus to campus on the map.