"From Afar" photo taken by Haiqing Zhang ‘18 in South India

Lewis Global Studies Center

The Phoebe and John D. Lewis Global Studies Center serves as a home base for international students, scholars, activists and visiting professors. Housing the Office for International Study and the Office for International Students and Scholars, the center provides a setting where international and domestic students and faculty educate each other about their languages and cultures. The Lewis Global Studies Center works with the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design, and Sustainability (CEEDS); the Jandon Center for Community Engagement; the Poetry Center; and the Wurtele Center for Leadership.

About the Center

Our Mission

The Lewis Global Studies Center integrates, enriches and promotes opportunities for the critical study of global issues in order to advance the college’s mission to prepare women for global citizenship and leadership. We engage Smith students, faculty and staff in international and intercultural studies and cultivate an understanding of the global context of a Smith education.

Talented young women are increasingly recognized around the globe as the hope of their nations, organizations and families. Smith College has embarked on a defining initiative: to educate women who will transform their communities and change our world. From day one on campus, students engage with international and intercultural issues. In collaboration with faculty advisers, students design a program of in-class and out-of-class global leadership experiences.

Laura Gomez
Administrative Coordinator

Kevin Morrison
Director, Lewis Global Studies Center

Angelo Pisano
Study Abroad Coordinator
Schedule an Appointment 

Javier Puente
Faculty Liaison

Claire Seely
International Students & Scholars Advisor
Schedule an Appointment

Caitlin Szymkowicz
Associate Dean of International Students & Scholars
Schedule an Appointment 

Photo of students posing in front of ancient ruins in Italy

Global Impressions

A journal featuring student and alumnae essays highlighting their experiences and epiphanies both abroad and at home.

Read the Latest Issue

Explore the Lewis Global Studies Center

A Window to the World: Global Courses at Smith

Long recognized as a leader in international education, Smith is a world college for the world’s women. Since the early 1900s, the college has had an international emphasis in its curriculum and was a pioneer in the field of study abroad when it established its Smith in Paris Program in 1925. Thirteen different languages are currently taught at Smith. Additionally, 33 departments across the curriculum offer more than 200 courses that have been designated by faculty as relating to global issues, with many more that examine different cultures within the United States. Each year, hundreds of Smith students study abroad, while the Smith campus welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 70 countries.

For more detailed information on course offerings, search the Smith College Course Catalog.

Smith’s academic program is designed to empower students to be ready to live, work and lead across borders. With faculty of varied international backgrounds and interests, courses on distinct cultures of the world and many languages spoken on campus, Smith is committed to making global learning an essential part of women’s education. The study of other countries and cultures—and the complex interactions among them—is featured throughout the curriculum, indeed throughout the college.

Africana Studies
  • AFR 110 Intro to Africana Studies
Art
  • ARH 110 Art and Its Histories
  • ARH 204 Art and Architecture of the Ancient Americas
  • ARH 233 Medieval Art on the Move: Pilgrimages and Crusade
  • ARH 265 Transnational Histories of American Art and Identity, 1860-1950
  • ARH 280 Collecting and Display in Europe and North America, 1400-1900
  • ARH 280 Topic: Playing with Ink and Brush 900CE to Present
Buddhist Studies
  • BUS 253 Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Phil and Hermeneutics
Dance
  • DAN 142 Dance Forms of the African Diaspora
  • DAN 149 Salsa
  • DAN 272 Dance Anthropology: Performed Identities and Embodied Cultures
  • DAN 377 Advanced Studies in History and Aesthetics. Topic: Salsa in Theory and Practice
East Asian Languages & Literatures
  • CHI 352 Food For Thought: Chinese Language, Culture, Environment, and Health
  • EAL 232/WLT Modern Chinese Literature
  • EAL 239/WLT Intimacy in Contemporary Chinese Women's Fiction
  • EAL 242 Modern Japanese Literature
  • EAL 253 Korean Cinema: Cinema and the Masses
  • EAL 292 Topic: The Shojo
  • EAL 360 Topic: Book History and Print Culture in China and Japan
  • JPN350/351 Japanese Contemporary Texts
East Asian Studies
  • EAL 291 Writing Empire
  • HST 200 Modern East Asia
  • HST 217 World War Two in East Asia
  • HST 313 Remembering the Asia-Pacific War
  • (was EAS 375, will be GOV if re-offered) Dimensions in East Asia-US Relations
English Language & Literature
  • ENG 171: Composing a Self: Chinese and English Voices
  • ENG 236 Environmental Poetry and Ecological Thought
  • ENG 241 The Empire Writes Back: Postcolonial Literature
  • ENG 334 Servants in Literature and Film
First-Year Seminars
  • FYS 127 Cuba and U.S. Embargo
  • FYS 167 Viking Diaspora: The First "New World" of the North Atlantic
  • FYS 172 (Dis)Obedient Daughters
  • FYS 174 Merging and Converging Cultures: What is gained and lost in translation?
  • FYS 175 Love Stories
  • FYS 184 Educating Women:A History and Sociology at Home and Abroad
  • FYS 187 The Temptations of Knowledge 
  • FYS 199 Re-Membering Marie Antoinette
Film & Media Studies
  • FMS 250 Global Cinema after World War II
  • FMS 251 A Global History of Television
French Studies
  • FRN 230 Banlieue Lit
  • FRN 230 Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean
  • FRN 250 Skyping with the French: Cross-Cultural Connections
  • FRN 251 The French Press Online
  • FRN 252 Cities of Light: Urban Space in Francophone Film
  • FRN 253 The Lady, the Knight, the King
  • FRN 264 Encountering Others in Ancien Régime France
  • FRN 265 Les Années noires: Paris during the Occupation, 1939-45
  • FRN 270 Language and Identity
  • FRN 282 From the Personal to the Political: Stories About Moral Dilemmas
  • FRN 295 French Translation in Practice
  • FRN 320 Women Writers of the Middle Ages
  • FRN 340 Changing Family Values in the French Enlightenment
  • FRN 343 Cultural Wars at the Theatre in the French Long Eighteenth Century
  • FRN 363 Crossing the Divide: Love, Ambition, and the Exploration of Social Difference
  • FRN 365 Food, Hunger, Memory: Literature of the Caribbean
  • FRN 380 France in America
  • FRN 380 Immigration and Sexuality
  • FRN 385 Global French: The Language of Business and International Trade
  • FRN 392 Stereotypes in French Cinema
German Studies
  • GER 114 Intensive Elementary German for the Arts and Sciences
  • GER 161 The Cultures of German-Speaking Europe (in English)
  • GER 161 231: Nazi Cinema (in English)
  • GER 260 German All Over Campus
  • GER 300 German Songs, Language and History
  • GER 300 Heimat: What is home?
  • GER 360 Seminar: Ingeborg Bachmann's Vienna
Italian Language & Literature
  • ITL 200 Made in Italy: Italian Design and World Culture
  • ITL 205 Savoring Italy: Recipes and Thoughts on Italian Cuisine and Culture  
  • ITL 245 Culture in Context: An Italian Immersion
  • ITL 250 Survey of Italian Literature I   
  • ITL 281 Italian Cinema Looks East  
  • ITL 299  Teaching Romance Languages: Theories and Techniques on Second Language Acquisition  
  • ITL 332 Finding Dante: A Reader's Guide to Getting out of Hell 
  • ITL 340 The Theory and Practice of Translation  
  • ITL/RES/WLT 341 (Calderwood Seminar) Mobilities: How People, Goods and Information Cross Borders
  • ITL 344 Senior Seminar: Italian Women Writers 
Jewish Studies
  • JUD 110 Introduction to Yiddish Culture
  • JUD 125/REL 125 The Jewish Tradition
  • JUD 229 Judaism and Environmentalism
  • JUD 235 Perspectives on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
  • JUD 235/MES 235 Perspectives on the Arab-Israel Conflict
  • JUD 260 Yiddish Literature and Culture
  • JUD 284 The Jews of Eastern Europe 1750-1945
  • JUD 287 The Holocaust
  • JUD 288 History of Israel 
Middle East Studies
  • MES 100 Introduction to Middle East Studies
  • MES 203 Introduction to Middle East Comparative Politics
  • MES 210 Modern Middle Eastern Cinema
  • MES 217 ​International Relations and Regional Order in the Middle East
  • MES 220 The Arab Spring
  • MES 222 Islam and Democracy in the Middle East
  • MES 230 Society and Development in the Middle East
  • MES 235 Perspectives on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
  • MES 240 Encounters with Unjust Authority: Political Fiction of the Arab World
  • MES 380 Seminar: Authoritarianism in the Middle East
Music
  • MUS 101: World Music
  • MUS 220: Topics in World Music, topics include: Popular Music of the Islamic World (Sarkissian), The Music of Japan (Sarkissian), African Popular Music (Omojola), Women in African Music (Omojola), Master Musicians of Africa (Omojola).
  • MUS/REL 249: Islamic Popular Music
  • MUS 955: Central Javanese Gamelan
  • MUS 958: Irish Music Ensemble: The Wailing Banshees
Philosophy
  • PHI/REL 108 The Meaning of Life, Translation and Cross-Cultural Interpretation; and our seminars frequently
  • PHIL 112 Intro to Chinese Phil
  • PHIL 127 Indian Philosophy
  • PHI 215 African-American Phil
  • PHI 236 Linguistic Structures
  • PHI 246 Race Matters
  • PHI 252 Buddhist Philosophy: Madhyamaka and Yogācāra
  • PHI 254 African Philosophy
  • PHI 260 Hermeneutics
Portuguese-Brazilian Studies
  • POR 125 Elementary Portuguese for Spanish-Speakers
  • POR 200 Intermediate Portuguese
  • POR/ARH 201 Brazilian Art Inside and Out
  • POR 202 Barriers to Belonging: Youth in Brazilian Film
  • POR 228 Indigenous Brazil: Past, Present, Future
  • POR 381 Place, Space and Identity in the Portuguese-Speaking World
Religion
  • REL 105 Introduction to World Religions
  • REL/PHI 108 The Meaning of life
  • REL 201 Ritual: Performance and Paradoxes
  • REL 206 Heaven, Hell, and Other Worlds: The Afterlife in World Religions
  • REL 223 The Modern Jewish Experience
  • REL 227 Women and Gender in Jewish History
  • REL 264 Buddhist Meditation Traditions
  • REL 270 Zen Buddhism and Japanese Culture
Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies
  • RES 100Y Elementary Russian
  • RES 105 St. Petersburg: History, Politics and Culture: Interterm in Russia
  • RES 126 Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature:Madmen, Conmen and Government Clerks
  • RES/REL 140 Putin's Russia: After Communism, After Atheism
  • RES 210 Environment and Ecology in Russian Culture
  • RES 221 Intermediate Russian
  • RES 222 Intermediate Russian II
  • WLT 240 Childhood and the Literatures of Africa and the African Diaspora
Spanish
  • SPN 230 topic Maghribi Jewish Women: Cordoba, Casablanca, Tel Aviv
  • SPN 246 Through the Jewish Lens: A Latin American Story
Women’s Studies
  • SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender
  • SWG 235 Gender, Land and Food Movements
  • SWG 236 International Feminist Political Economy
  • SWG 316 Feminist Theories of Cross-Border Organizing
  • SWG 318 Women Against Empire
  • SWG 3xx Marxist Feminism
World Literatures
  • WLT 100 Introduction to Comparative Literature: The Pleasures of Reading; Topic: Islands, Real and Imaginary
  • WLT 150 The Art of Translation
  • WLT 170 Journeys in World Literature
  • WLT 218 Holocaust Literature
  • WLT/EAL 232 Modern Chinese Literature
  • WLT/EAL 239 Intimacy in Contemporary Chinese Women's Literature
  • WLT 270 Health and Illness: Literary Explorations
  • WLT 271 Writing in Translation: Bilingualism in the Postcolonial Novel
  • WLT 272 Composing a Self: Chinese and English Voices
  • WLT 276 #MeToo: Sex, Gender and Power across Cultures
  • WLT/TSX 330 Translating Across Borders 
  • WLT 340 Narrating the Anthropocene (senior seminar)
  • WLT 341 Mobilities: How People, Goods and Information Cross Borders
Anthropology
  • ANT 223 In Sickness and in Health
  • ANT 253 Introduction to East Asian Societies and Cultures
  • ANT 342 Biopower, Bioplitics and Governance
  • ANT/ENV 224 Anthropos in the Anthropocene
Economics
  • ECO 226 Economics of European Integration
  • ECO 296 (international Finance)
  • ECO 319 Seminar: Economics of Migration
  • ECO 375 Seminar: The Theory and Practice of Central Banking
  • ECO 396 (International Financial Markets)
Education and Child Study
  • EDC 212 Linguistics for Educators
  • EDC 226 The Making of a School
  • EDC 237 Comparative Education
  • EDC 278 Race in Education
  • EDC 343 Multicultural Education
  • FYS184 Educating Women
Global Financial Institutions
  • GFX 100 Global Financial Institutions
Government
  • GOV 220 Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • GOV 221 European Politics
  • GOV 221 European Politics
  • GOV 226 Latin American Political Systems
  • GOV 227 Contemporary African Politics
  • GOV 227 Contemporary African Politics
  • GOV 228 Government and Politics of Japan
  • GOV 230 Chinese Politics
  • GOV 231 Colloquium: Women's Social Movements in the Middle East
  • GOV 232 Comparative Political Economy
  • GOV 235 Government and Politics in East Asia
  • GOV 237 Politics of the US/Mexico Border
  • GOV 238 Topic: Conflict and Cooperation in Asia
  • GOV 239 Social Justice Movements in Latin America
  • GOV 241 International Politics
  • GOV 242 International Political Ecocnomy
  • GOV 244 Foreign Policy of the United States
  • GOV 248 The Arab-Israeli Dispute
  • GOV 249 International Human Rights
  • GOV 251 Foreign Policy of Japan
  • GOV 253 Culture and Diplomacy in Asia
  • GOV 257 Colloquium: Refugee Politics
  • GOV 307 Latinos and Immigration in the U.S.
  • GOV 340 Seminar: Politics of Cultural Pluralism
  • GOV 341 Seminar in International Politics
  • GOV 347 Comparative Regionalization
  • GOV 348 Seminar in International Politics Conflict and Cooperation in Asia
History
  • HST 201 The Silk Road and Premodern Eurasia
  • HST 206 Topic: Slaves and Slavery in the Ancient World
  • HST 229 A World Before Race?
  • HST 234 Global Africa
  • HST 235 Independent Africa
  • HST 236 World History 1000-2000
  • HST 239 Imperial Russia, 1650–1917
  • HST 247 Topic: Affirmative Action Empire
  • HST 249 Early Modern Europe 1600-1815
  • HST 250 Europe in the Nineteenth Century
  • HST 251 Europe in the Twentieth Century
  • HST 257 Beyond Bondage: African History through the Slave Trade
  • HST 257 Beyond Bondage: Early African History through the Slave Trade
  • HST 259 Aspects of African History: Discourses of Development
  • HST 259 Aspects of African History: Topic: Discourses of Development
  • HST 259 Topic: Decolonization
  • HST 259 Topic: Discourses of Development
  • HST 259 Topic: Femininities, Masculinities, and Sexualities in Africa
  • HST 264 Women and Revolutions
  • HST 270 Topic: Slavery in the Atlantic World
  • HST 282 Pacific Worlds
  • HST 300 Nationalism (Calderwood Seminar)
  • HST 343 Problems in World History: Twentieth-Century Revolutions
  • HST 350 Topic: Gender and Histories of the Holocaust
  • HST 350 Topic: Gender, Race and the History of Human Rights in post-1945 Europe
  • HST 355 Topic: Women and World War I
Latin American and Latino/a Studies
  • LAS 301 Contesting Spaces: Art, Ecology, Activism
Sociology
  • SOC 232 World Population
  • SOC 236 Beyond Borders: New International Political Economy
  • SOC 237 Gender & Globalization
  • SOC 327 Global Migration in the 21st Century
  • SOC222 Blackness in the Americas
  • SPN 230 topic Maghribi Jewish Women: Cordoba, Casablanca, Tel Aviv
  • SPN 246 Through the Jewish Lens: A Latin American Story
Astronomy
  • AST 214 Astronomy and Public Policy
Biochemistry
  • BCH 352 Biochemical Dynamics
Biological Sciences
  • BIO 100 Human Origins: Disentangling the myths and facts that surround the evolution of our species
  • BIO 130 Biodiversity, Ecology and Conservation
  • BIO 321 Molecular Pathogenesis of Emerging Infectious Diseases
Computer Science
  • CSC 325 Seminar: Responsible Computing
Environmental Science & Policy
  • ENV 101 Sustainability and Social-Ecological Systems
  • ENV 201/202 Researching Environmental Problems
  • ENV 230 Environment and Society in China
  • ENV 326 Natural Resource Management and Environmental Justice
Geosciences
  • GEO 104 Global Climate Change
  • GEO 106 Extraordinary Events in the History of Earth, Life and Climate
  • GEO 108 Oceanography
  • GEO 112 Archaeological Geology of Rock Art and Stone Artifacts
  • GEO 334 Carbonate Sedimentology
  • GEO 361 Tectonics and Earth History
Mathematics & Statistics
  • MTH 105 Inequalities: Numbers, Data, and Justice

Programs

Visiting Scholars Program

Smith College’s Visiting Scholars Program serves to enrich campus intellectual activities, nurture the college’s commitment to cultural diversity and further its goal of being a world college.

Contact Lewis Global Studies Center

Wright Hall 127
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063