This course will explore the American art museum as a distinctive cultural and political idea. Tracing its origins to the ancient world, the American museum was descended more immediately from institutions created during the European Enlightenment, but differing with regard to overall mission and civic purpose. This course will explore the various roles played by museums in American society, focusing on programmatic content, organizational design, funding and operating practices, and the particular issues that have arisen in recent years in the areas of cultural property restitution, collection development, special exhibitions, governance and funding, anti-colonialism, and the larger question of civic purpose. Students will have the opportunity to visit local museums and meet with museum leaders in various professional areas.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Weiss, Daniel H
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

How did ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean basin (Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Carthage) understand and represent their own and others’ identities and ethnic differences? How did notions and practices around race, citizenship, and immigration evolve from antiquity to the present? How have culture and politics informed artistic, literary, and museum representations of ethnic ‘others’ over time, along with the historical development of ethnography, biological science, and pseudo-sciences of race? What role did “Classics” (the study of Greco-Roman cultures) play in modern colonialism, racecraft, and inequality? And what role can it play in unmaking their legacies, through the ongoing Black Classicism movement, the practice of Critical Race Theory, and the development of more global and interconnective approaches to premodern cultures? RAP provides an opportunity for Hopkins undergraduates and graduate students from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds to engage in project-based research toward building an open-access, grant-winning educational resource (OER) on “Race in Antiquity.” Participants learn, share, and practice advanced research methods; examine and discuss the history and modern implications of the teaching and study of their fields; test-drive and collaboratively edit OER pilot materials; and create new content based on their own research, for eventual digital publication.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Pandey, Nandini
• Room: Greenhouse 000
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This research-based Lab course will involve careful reading of a variety of Roman texts of the early empire, aiming to catalogue every instance of public speech and of the orators who speak in public. This cataloguing project, perhaps eventually resulting in an online database, will include historical and comparative readings about public speech as a feature of society.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Roller, Matthew
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This survey course examines the history of Europe from the early sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries. Topics to be examined include the Reformations and religious wars, curiosity, contact and conquest of non-European lands, the rise of modern bureaucratic states, the emergence of popular sovereignty as a political criterion, the new science, as well as expanding literacy and consumption.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Loiselle, Ken
• Room: Krieger 304
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/26
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL

This course provides an overview of Native American History in North America. We will investigate the diverse Indigenous cultures and political systems that have called the continent home from large and historically well-documented polities such as Cherokee nation and the Haudenosaunee to the crucial yet often-overlooked role of smaller polities such as those of the Abenakis and the Petites Nations of the Gulf Coast. Along the way we will ask: how have geography (and displacement) shaped culture and politics? how have Indigenous histories shaped the history of the United States (as well as Mexico and Canada)? what are the unique challenges of studying and writing Native American History today?

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Grindon, Blake
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL

This course provides an overview of Native American History in North America. We will investigate the diverse Indigenous cultures and political systems that have called the continent home from large and historically well-documented polities such as Cherokee nation and the Haudenosaunee to the crucial yet often-overlooked role of smaller polities such as those of the Abenakis and the Petites Nations of the Gulf Coast. Along the way we will ask: how have geography (and displacement) shaped culture and politics? how have Indigenous histories shaped the history of the United States (as well as Mexico and Canada)? what are the unique challenges of studying and writing Native American History today?

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Grindon, Blake
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL

By 1900, France had conquered large parts of the African continent - mainly through violence - and gained a reputation as the least racist Western state. In 2023, the French government works to hold onto the power it still holds in multiple sub-Saharan countries while, at home and abroad, the perniciousness and persistence of French anti-African racisms spark debate and activism. This course examines the interactions between African and Afro-descendent people and France/the French, in Africa (with particular attention to North and West Africa), France, and beyond. We will focus on colonialism, decolonization, and neocolonialism - notably “Françafrique” - as well as how Africans and Afro-descendent people in France navigated the challenges and possibilities they encountered.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 23/30
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-AFRICA, INST-GLOBAL

This class focuses on Europe from the end of World War II until today. We will discuss topics such as Germany’s division during the Cold War, the European welfare state, the relationship to the US and the Soviet Union, decolonization, the revolutions of 1989, racism, neoliberalism, and the EU. Expect academic literature, movies, documentary films, textual and visual primary sources, and plenty of group work. A special treat: we will team up with students at the University of Regensburg to research current challenges to and in the transatlantic alliance.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Harms, Victoria Elisabeth
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/40
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL, HIST-US

Conspiratorial thinking is nothing new in American politics. Since the founding of the nation, Americans have been riveted—and riven—by conspiracy theories. This course introduces students to key methods and questions in U.S. history by exploring conspiratorial episodes from the American Revolution through the present. We’ll pick apart allegations and denials of conspiracies to discover what they tell us about American politics and culture. We’ll also consider historians’ analyses of conspiratorial claims, and think about the relationship between conspiracy and historical causality.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Luff, Jennifer D
• Room: Gilman 219
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, POLI-AP, INST-GLOBAL, INST-AP

This course investigates sexual cultures through the lens of modern Queer History in the United States and Western Europe, with forays into global and transnational histories.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL

The political, social and cultural history of events that marked a turning-point to the modern era by inaugurating and then destroying a more popular democracy than Europeans had yet known.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Mason, Laura
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL

Examines the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that swept Europe in the eighteenth century to shape the modern world. Students will not only read canonical works of the period (Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, etc.) but also consider the broader social and cultural contexts in which ideas evolved. Thus, the class will explore the rise of the book trade and popular reading practices; new understandings of gender and sexuality; and the development of anti-Black racism and slavery in the Atlantic world.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Kwass, Michael
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/14
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL, CES-RI, CES-GI, CES-PD

This is a larger seminar-style course devoted to the writings attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (El-Hajj El-Malik Shabazz). While the two the key African American male icons of the Civil Rights Movement era gained prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, they are typically discussed as representing two ideological camps: racial integration deeply committed to the idea of American exceptionalism and democratic perfection, and black nationalism, a non-state ideological move that adjudged the U.S. nation state on the same terms as any other imperial power. We will explore these binaries in their thought and the social movements connected to them, and also engage with multiple cinematic representations of the two figures that have carried them forward into contemporary times.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jackson, Lawrence P
• Room: Ames 320
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, ENGL-GLOBAL, CES-RI

Survey of the history of China from ca. 1895 to ca. 1976.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Rowe, William T
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/40
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-ASIA

This upper-division course is designed to help students examine and probe the significant role Africa has played in shaping the Atlantic world and its place within its economic, social, religious, cultural, and political configurations.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Gondola, Didier Didier
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-AFRICA, AFRS-AFRICA, INST-GLOBAL

This class reassesses the history of the Cold War through sports. We will investigate how the Cold War has shaped sports, the Olympic movement, the role of athletes at home and abroad. We will discuss how sports intersected with domestic and foreign policy, and how sports reinforced or challenged notions of race, gender, and class. We will also interview eyewitnesses, former athletes in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Harms, Victoria Elisabeth
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL, HIST-US, HIST-ASIA, MSCH-HUM

Students work in close collaboration with a faculty member to produce an individual research project. The course is designed for history majors in conjunctions with AS.100.293, and it is recommended, although not required, that the AS.100.293 be taken first.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Maciejko, Pawel Tadeusz
• Room: Hodson 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 28/36
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course explores development as an ideology and a practice. From colonialism to the Cold War to contemporary NGOs, we will interrogate the history of our attempts to improve the world. This iteration of the course will have a particular focus on the intersections between development and the environment. Graduate students welcome.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room: Krieger 304
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-LATAM, INST-GLOBAL, CES-LE, CES-PD

In this course, we will explore American labor, business and immigration history through data using AI. Students will learn how to think critically about how data are made and organized. They will then use that data to build arguments and visualizations about social and economic change over time. Throughout the course, we will learn to use various tools such as Google Sheets, Python, and Chat GPT for data analysis. No prior experience with statistics or programming is necessary, but students should come with a desire to learn. For advanced undergraduates and graduates.

• Days/Times: M 5:00PM - 7:30PM
• Instructor: Hyman, Louis
• Room: Wyman Park 350
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, AGRI-ELECT, MSCH-HUM, CES-LC, CES-TI

This undergraduate research seminar examines censorship laws, practices, and debates from the eighteenth century to the present. Issues include political speech, obscenity and pornography, and racist hate speech. In addition to discussing common readings, each student will choose a censorship case or issue to research, present to the class, and analyze in a final essay.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jelavich, Peter
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, CES-LSO, AGRI-ELECT

Since 1900 global markets have undergone a dramatic transformation. This course will grapple with the writings of economists and social theorists who sought to understand the implications of these changes, and in some cases helped to inspire them. Questions they addressed include: does freedom result from the absence of coercion, or does it require the provision of capacities? Do markets reward desirable behaviors, or do they produce social and environmental pathologies? Does competition occur spontaneously, or does it require careful regulation and reinforcement? And what is the relationship between innovation and inequality? Readings include selections from Max Weber, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, W.E.B. DuBois, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter, Theodor Adorno, Milton Friedman, Donna Haraway, Wendy Brown, and Thomas Piketty. Class meetings will focus on the close reading of these texts, and discussion of how and why perceptions of the market economy have changed over time.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Burgin, Angus
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL, INST-ECON, CES-ELECT, CES-PD, CES-LC

This seminar-style course will focus on discussing British and American political thought from the "Age of Revolutions", a period also of many critiques of Empire and of many works of Antislavery. Readings include Paine's Common Sense and Rights of Man, the Declaration of Rights, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers; works by Smith, Burke, and Wollstonecraft; and antislavery works by Cugoano, Equiano, Rush, Wesley, and Wilberforce.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Marshall, John W
• Room: Gilman 17
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/19
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL, INST-PT, CES-LSO

In this course, students participate in a research “laboratory,” engaging in direct research on an area of faculty’s research, leading to the development of a collective, digital humanities project.

• Days/Times: WF 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Johnson, Jessica Marie
• Room: Macaulay 109
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): AGRI-ELECT, INST-NWHIST, MSCH-HUM, HIST-US, HIST-EUROPE

This course analyzes various episodes of “luddism” in the history of science and technology, from the destruction of textile machinery in the early 1800s up to recent controversies about robots, vaccines, and AI chatbots. What explains why different groups of actors did (or did not) resist the introduction of new technologies, ranging from the bicycle and the automobile to the nuclear energy plant? What types of fears did these technologies arouse? What can history teach us about the recurring concern that technological innovation might destroy more jobs than it generates? These are some of the themes we will be examining in this seminar on the basis of research presentations and classroom discussions of primary and secondary historical sources.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

An analysis of public policy and policy-making for American Cities. Special attention will be given to the subject of urban crime and law enforcement, poverty and welfare, and intergovernmental relations. Cross listed with Africana Studies.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Spence, Lester
• Room: Hodson 203
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/25
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, CES-LSO, CES-RI, CES-CC

How do I make money, gain and keep power, find love, live long, strengthen my memory, avoid depression, cook well, write beautifully, fence, mix paint, counteract poisoning, and create coded messages?  The Renaissance had answers to these and many other questions. This course explores a large sampling of advice from the Italian Renaissance. Readings include Machiavelli’s Prince, Della Casa’s Galateo of Manners, Maestro Martino's Art of Cooking, and selections from Cornaro's Art of Living Long, Manciolino's Guide to Swordsmanship, Cennini's Craftsman's Handbook, Della Porta’s Natural Magic, Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, Ficino’s Book of Life, as well as religious sermons, humanist treatises, and books of “secrets.” Secondary literature will provide historical context for the primary texts and tools for recognizing and unpacking the persuasive devices used in these early examples of self-help. Students will become familiar with Italian Renaissance thought and develop analytical and critical skills to examine advice in its cultural and temporal context. The course as a whole will focus on the notion of “core values” and what is at stake when you propose help or seek help. We will also experience some of these "how-to's", such as calligraphy, oration, creating codes, and more.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Saiber, Arielle
• Room: Gilman 479
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The supernatural is often described as the disruption of universal coherence. It becomes an aggression that challenges the stability of a world in which the natural laws were, until then, intact. The Impossible suddenly happens in a world in which it was banished.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Cipriani, Giulia M.
• Room: Gilman 313
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, MLL-ENGL

The supernatural is often described as the disruption of universal coherence. It becomes an aggression that challenges the stability of a world in which the natural laws were, until then, intact. The Impossible suddenly happens in a world in which it was banished.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM, F 2:00PM - 2:50PM
• Instructor: Avesani, Tatiana; Cipriani, Giulia M.
• Room: Gilman 313
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/4
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, MLL-ENGL

This course invites students to explore culture in the late and post-Cold War world from a broader perspective by surveying literature, thought, cinema, art, and music in Chinese and Soviet societies from the 1980s to the present. How did Chinese and Soviet intellectuals reconfigure, reform, and/or reinvent their cultures as they re-embraced the ideas of freedom, democracy, and globalization? How did they grapple with the legacies of their socialist and even pre-socialist pasts as they entered new eras of reforms? How did reform movements adopt different forms and strategies in different parts of the USSR and in the Sinophone world? What kinds of negotiations took place between various centers and peripheries within and around these regions? What can we learn from their cultural endeavors about the promises, contradictions, and discontents of the post-Cold War world, as we witness the rise of a so-called “new cold war” today? In this co-taught course, specialists in Sinophone and Soviet cultures will guide students to read and discuss representative works from the 1980s onward from a comparative perspective. Readings include Cui Jian, Yu Hua, Can Xue, Mo Yan, Yan Lianke, Guo Songfen, and the film Hibiscus Town, as well as Viktor Tsoi, Komar and Melamid, Aka Morchiladze, Oksana Zabuzhko, Serhiy Zhadan, and the film Repentance. No prerequisites. All course materials will be provided in English translation or with English subtitles.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru; Schmelz, Peter John
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar introduces students to the phenomenon of migration in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan from theoretical, empirical, and comparative perspectives. The objectives of the course are to understand the 1) historical context behind present-day migrations in East Asia; 2) different patterns of migration flows and their consequences on receiving countries; 3) various theoretical frameworks for migration. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part, the course will examine theoretical approaches to migration, structured around the question of whether East Asia as a region represents a distinct model of migration. In the second, students will explore the empirical cases in greater detail by comparing and contrasting the different types of migrations. The third part addresses the responses to migration by host governments and societies and the implications of migration on citizenship and identity. Recommended Course Background: any class related to the history or politics of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and/or China.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Jin
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-CP

China’s turbulent 20th century was marked by social and political upheavals, wars, and economic hardship. Women writers played an important role in documenting these events. How did women experience and understand their historical context? How were their experiences and interpretations different from (or similar to) those of their male counterparts? This course will search modern China’s mind through women’s writings. Students will read works by women writers of the “long 20th century” (roughly 1890s-2020s) including, but not limited to, Ding Ling, Xiao Hong, Zhang Ailing, and Zhang Jie. We will engage in close readings of their literary works in context of their life experiences, considering key themes such as women’s identity and agency, nationalism, revolution, and social reform as well as new and changing gender norms. Basic knowledge of modern Chinese history helpful but not required.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Jin
• Room: Mergenthaler 252
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

We will try to get a quick overview of the recent history of patriarchy in China, South Korea, and Japan from the mid-twentieth century to our present and then compare the initiatives of feminists to transform the lives of women throughout these three societies. We will also debate whether or how it makes sense to adapt the Western notions of patriarchy and sexism as well as the Western political program of feminism to the non-Western context of East Asia by reading books by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Henning, Stefan
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-CP

You will learn about the efforts of ordinary, non-elite Muslims to shape the relation between their communities and the state as well as to (where applicable) the non-Muslim majority through collective organizing over the last forty years. We will read and discuss books by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists studying Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Henning, Stefan
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/15
• PosTag(s): ISLM-ISLMST, INST-CP, CES-ELECT

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Backer, Samuel Ehrlich; Messner, Craig A
• Room: Gilman 195
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): COGS-COMPCG

In this humanities research lab, students will conduct original research on local histories of Asian American and Asian diasporic communities in the Baltimore area, inclusive of D.C. Students will think about how and why the histories and experiences of the region’s Asian American and diasporic communities, especially their interactions with other racialized and minoritized groups, continue to be erased from public conversation, and then engage in hands-on collaborative and reparative work in response to such erasure. The lab is organized around discussions and workshops with community collaborators, guest speakers, and scholars, as well as visits to archives, neighborhoods, and community organizations. This course requires at least four Friday group trips to 555 Penn in Washington D.C. (transportation provided).

• Days/Times: F 10:00AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Kim, Yumi
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Learn the basics of ArcGIS, data management, and the history of maps and censuses as you help Prof. Lurtz build a digital historical atlas of Mexico. No experience necessary, graduate students welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room: Hodson 315
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

This course introduces students to the field of Africana Studies. It focuses on the historical experience, intellectual ideas, theories, and cultural production of African-descended people. We will consider how people of the black diaspora remember and encounter Africa.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Mott, Shani T; Stocks, Shawntay
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): CES-ELECT, CES-RI

This course offers a hands-on opportunity for students to develop new skills as community organizers by learning from the best teachers possible: residents who have been serving their neighborhoods and building grassroots power in Southwest Baltimore since the 1990s. As a community-based learning course with the Center for Social Concern, and co-taught by professors, archivists, cultural curators, and longtime residents, including the founder of Fayette Street Outreach, Ms. Edna Manns Lake, this course will leverage the narrative power of storytelling to help rewrite a multigenerational history of community organizing in a part of the city long neglected by local government and threatened historically by open-air drug markets, rampant criminalization, and predatory housing speculators. Through community immersion, including story circles, oral histories, community archiving, local meetings, and guest presentations, students will learn how to navigate, identify, and build upon existing neighborhood assets. Students will then collaborate with a community partner to co-design and complete a neighborhood project by the end of the semester. Dispelling myths, learning truths, documenting history, and honoring decades of struggle in the face of massive odds, students will help re-write the narrative of Southwest Baltimore, centering humanity and resilience among resident-activists who stayed and fought for their community.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Berkley, Tonika Danielle; Collins, Jeneanne; Cumming, Daniel
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/20
• PosTag(s): CSC-CE

In our digital age of hacking, on-line bots, and trolls stealing, faking, and confounding information across the Internet, it is too often forgotten that “fake news” has, in fact, always been with us. This course examines this dark undercurrent within human civilization across historical time, exploring specific examples of fakes, lies, and forgeries from the biblical Flood in antiquity to prophecies of a future Apocalypse. We will draw throughout on the riches of JHU’s own Bibliotheca Fictiva—the world’s premier rare book and manuscript research collection dedicated to literary forgeries across the millennia.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Havens, Earle A
• Room: BLC 2043
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE, MSCH-HUM

Archives are where history is documented, and archives have tremendous power over whose stories get told. This course will critically examine the relationship between archival practice and public history by using John Hopkins University as a case study. We will work closely with archivists in the Special Collections Department and archives across Baltimore to get a firsthand look at how local archives shape public history, collective memory, and institutional silences. Students will learn how public historians, archivists, community activists, and students themselves can work together to do reparative research that advances social justice in their own communities.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Blair, Monica Kristin
• Room: BLC 2030
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, MSCH-HUM

This course examines material culture through the lens of personal collecting. Focusing on the United States, students will explore how collectors influenced the holdings of the nation’s museums, including JHU’s Evergreen and Homewood Museum, and contemplate how collecting, for public and private purposes, shapes status and taste in America. This course will also address how collections are organized, displayed, and conserved and will delve into psychological and environmental aspects of collecting and hoarding.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Finkelstein, Lori
• Room: Hmwd House Wine Cllr
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/13
• PosTag(s): n/a

This introductory course surveys the history of Europe from the Renaissance to the Napoleonic period. Topics to be covered include European encounters in the Americas, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations and the subsequent religious violence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the rise of centralizing states and popular resistance to expanding government, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment as well as the origins, process and legacies of the French Revolution.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Loiselle, Ken
• Room: Gilman 17
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/20
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

What does the aphorism that “war is hell” mean in practical terms? The course will serve as a deconstructive introduction to military history, overviewing soldiers’ and generals’ experiences of historically significant military disasters. Students will also be guided through the creation of a research paper on a conflict of their own choosing.

• Days/Times: MW 1:00PM - 4:45PM
• Instructor: Bentov, Achinoam
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/18
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-ASIA, HIST-US

From the early 20th century, Chinese society underwent a turbulent process of modern transformation. Industrialization, urbanization, and democratization challenged previous gender and family norms. Meanwhile, at exactly this time, the Chinese film industry flourished, especially in the modern metropolis of Shanghai. Women and family provided a useful microcosm through which to explore national questions related to revolution, war, and modernity. They also entertained a public eager for new leisure pursuits. Popular feature films not only recorded but also interpreted and helped shape family and gender roles. Using filmic representations as the main material this First-Year Seminar will survey the "family question" (and "the woman question") in 20th century China

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Jin
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Over the past 250 years, Germany has produced some of the most influential currents of philosophy as well as drama—at the same time that it has been the site of the greatest horrors of the modern era. In this course, we will read (and view) tragedies, comedies, and cabaret scripts that address developments in German thought and society from the Enlightenment to the present. We will ask: How effective are performances at transmitting ideas and values? How do they balance emotional involvement with intellectual understanding? What is the function of words, gestures, music, and staging, and how do they interact? And what are the relative strengths of the various genres: tragedy, comedy, cabaret? The sources will range from classics of 18th-century drama (Lessing’s Nathan the Wise and Goethe’s Faust) to highlights of 20th-century theater (the plays of Brecht, cabaret songs and skits). We will read most of the works as texts, but we will also view videos and films, and perhaps (depending on the offerings of local stages) attend performances.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Jelavich, Peter
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

During the Renaissance, Christians frequently depicted the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the personifications of disease, famine, war, and conquest. Nearly half of all children died before the age of five and ten percent of women died of childbirth or of pregnancy related complications. Wars consumed the continent during the bloody sixteenth century, thanks to advances in military technology and religious violence. With no knowledge of the cause of disease and absent antibiotics, disease was as terrifying as mass murder. In this class, we explore death, dying, health, and hope in early modern Europe. How did death and the fear of death shape society? How did it affect politics and economics, gender and family? At the center of death – and life - was religion; in this chaotic world, disease was a punishment and God the only cure; as a result, we will explore how religion was the other side of the coin of death and disease. We will learn how to read primary sources of Renaissance people grappling with their mortality and examine Renaissance art. In the process, we will investigate one of the biggest questions human beings confront: What is the meaning of life in the face of death?

• Days/Times: F 12:30PM - 3:00PM
• Instructor: Rowe, Erin
• Room: San Martin Center 200A
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What are the implications of Africa’s urban revolution? In the last century, Africa’s cities have boomed at a dizzying pace, witnessing the most rapid urbanization in human history. This trend is unstoppable; yet it comes with opportunities and challenges. This first-year seminar invites students to explore Africa’s cities, their evolution from precolonial times to the digital age, their quest for modernity, and the unique repertoires of urban life they have registered thanks to the creativity of their overwhelming young denizens

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Gondola, Didier Didier
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

The era identified as the “High Renaissance” in Florence was one of the most dystopian in the history of the city, a period of terror and explosive political crisis beginning with the expulsion of the Medici, followed by the theocratic Savonarolan regime in 1494, the repressive Medici restoration of 1513 and concluding with the fall of the “Last Republic” in 1530. Much of the most distinctive cultural production associated with this period - the sermons of Savonarola, the writings of Machiavelli, and major works of art by Michelangelo and others, is concerned with the relocation of Florentine identity following an experience of rupture with history and tradition, leading to a fundamental revaluation of the past and of the significance of history and memory. We will examine cultural transformation under a succession of Republican and autocratic regimes, with a particular attention to the process of “image-making” on the part of the state, of factions within it, of writers and ideologues, and - not least - of artists.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Campbell, Stephen John
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): HART-RENEM

Modern Europe familiarizes students with key moments, ideas, communities, individuals, and movements which have defined European experiences in global encounters since the Revolutionary era. We will particularly focus on European imperial expansion, the formation of the modern nation-state, the history of political ideas and their global ramifications, and popular culture and social change.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL

Modern Europe familiarizes students with key moments, ideas, communities, individuals, and movements which have defined European experiences in global encounters since the Revolutionary era. We will particularly focus on European imperial expansion, the formation of the modern nation-state, the history of political ideas and their global ramifications, and popular culture and social change.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL

A class combining Latin American history since independence and digital humanities. Students will build guided research projects while thinking about questions of republicanism, freedom and unfreedom, migration, and development.

• Days/Times: MW 9:00AM - 9:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/20
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-LATAM

A class combining Latin American history since independence and digital humanities. Students will build guided research projects while thinking about questions of republicanism, freedom and unfreedom, migration, and development.

• Days/Times: MW 9:00AM - 9:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/20
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-LATAM

Many Americans celebrate the United States as a “nation of immigrants,” but defining which immigrants to include and exclude in the nation has always been a contentious process. This course will put some of today’s immigration debates in historical perspective, examining how past Americans debated questions about the “fitness” of immigrants for freedom and citizenship, and how those debates in turn shaped immigrant experiences, the law, and American identity. Topics that we will cover include colonialism and slavery; immigrant labor; families; gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality; immigration law; borders and deportation; refugees and asylum seekers; and citizenship and belonging.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lim, Julian
• Room: Croft Hall G02
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/30
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL, INST-AP, CES-BM, CES-LC, CES-LSO, CES-RI, CES-CC

There is more to Germany than beer, BMWs, and Bayern Munich. We explore politics, culture, economics and society to understand Germany and its role within Europe and the world from the 18th century, the German Empire, WWII, the division into two states during the Cold War to the rise of the AfD, and EU politics today. We’ll partner with students at the University of Regensburg to discuss current challenges!

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Harms, Victoria Elisabeth
• Room: Hodson 203
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/35
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL, MLL-GERM, MLL-ENGL

Columbus’s arrival in the Caribbean set off a chain of violence that swept through the early modern Americas. In this course we will investigate how warfare shaped North America and the Caribbean in the period between Columbus’s fateful 1492 voyage and the establishment of an independent Haitian state. The interlinked patterns of colonialism and trans-Atlantic slavery forced together people from three continents and made Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans in the Americas rethink what it meant to fight a war, and how to do it. We will consider how different cultures understood, deployed, and attempted to control violence, and then focus on specific wars, engaging with both contemporary scholarship and primary sources. Along the way, we will consider how the Americas, despite a long history before Columbus, became a “new world” through the warfare that followed after him. Throughout this semester we will read and discuss a variety of different forms of historical writing and consider the wide applicability of the history we are studying in the world around us today. Students will have the opportunity to explore different forms of historically informed writing in their own work.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Grindon, Blake
• Room: Krieger 306
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, HIST-LATAM, INST-GLOBAL

Why are cities associated with sex and vice? Are cities a natural refuge for LGBT people? This course explores the role of American cities in the history of sexuality, including Baltimore.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Gill Peterson, Jules
• Room: Bloomberg 276
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, CES-CC, CES-GI

This course will survey the main methods of and approaches to history since the Ancient times till the present. We shall begin by asking “What is history?” and explicate the basic concepts such as “fact”, “event”, “source”, narrative”, “evidence”, etc. We shall inquire if history can teach lessons for the future, or, for that matter, any lessons at all. We shall explore the interactions of history and collective memory and discuss various social, political, and psychological uses and abuses of historical writing.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Maciejko, Pawel Tadeusz
• Room: Maryland 114
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

The United States has had 59 elections in its history, and in 2024 it will be having the next. Every election reflects a particular moment. Political parties, of course, have a logic of their own, driven by individuals and circumstances, but in some way, the elections also reflect larger, changing questions about the future of the country. This course will set the 2024 election in the long history of the American election. Each student will choose a different election to study deeply for a substantial research project, drawing on the archives of DC. At the end of the semester, we will synthesize our findings into a more readily accessible format that lays out how the American election has changed over time. This shared piece, as well as the individual histories, will be combined into a volume and perhaps an exhibit.

• Days/Times: T 11:30AM - 2:30PM
• Instructor: Hyman, Louis
• Room: 555 Penn B240
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 8/20
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, HIST-US, AGRI-ELECT, CES-LSO

Praise and praxis of the small farmer and local foodways long predate "modern" advancements in farming technologies and industrial agriculture. And strands of agrarianism have persisted in the face of agro-industrial growth. Questions of sustainable agriculture, food security, food sovereignty, and heritage crops and cuisines have posed poignant social, political, and economic concerns in the past and present. This class focuses on topics and tensions around culture, agriculture, and the environment in U.S. history through intersectional and interdisciplinary frameworks.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Palazzolo, Ellie Gwendolyn
• Room: Shaffer 302
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/18
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR, MSCH-HUM, CES-LE, CES-LC

In this course, we will survey the political, social, intellectual, and cultural history of the three Islamic early modern gunpowder empires that ranged from “the Balkans to Bengal”: The Ottomans (1300-1922), the Safavids (1501-1736), and the Mughals (1526-1858).

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali
• Room: Croft Hall G02
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-MIDEST, INST-GLOBAL, HIST-ASIA

The history of China from the 16th to the late 19th centuries.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Rowe, William T
• Room: Hodson 316
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 22/40
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-ASIA

The legacies of colonialism in Latin America have been bitterly contested in recent film and other digital media. From highlighting the afterlives of enslavement to asserting Indigenous rights, creators and audiences have turned to screens to address the open wounds of the region’s colonial past. By analyzing hits like También la lluvia and the Mexican cult favorite, 499, this course uses film analysis, cultural memory, and primary sources to understand how these media make arguments about Latin America's colonial past and its significance in the present. The course similarly engages with the field of historical game studies through the analysis of videogames and boardgames that create simulations of early modern societies in the Americas. In this course, students will develop the ability to identify how digital media production and reception shape the memory of colonialism in the American hemisphere. In so doing, they will also acquire a deeper knowledge of Latin American colonial histories and their influence on contemporary culture. Necessarily, the course heavily emphasizes Indigenous perspectives and so simultaneously serves as an introduction to Indigenous Studies in Latin America.

• Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Luis, Diego Javier
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): HIST-LATAM

The Modern British World introduces some of the major events, themes, and controversies that led to Britain’s global dominance and ultimate decline as an imperial power.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Gilman 219
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL

What did Chinese local society look like under the Qing Empire, and how did it change over the early modern era?

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Rowe, William T
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-ASIA

Witchcraft, magic, carnivals, riots, folk tales, gender roles; fertility cults and violence especially in Britain, Germany, France, and Italy.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Marshall, John W
• Room: Maryland 114
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/25
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-EUROPE

Presidential elections – even rare, unexpected, or paradigm-busting elections – do not occur in a vacuum. Instead, they are created, shaped, and constructed by a variety of significant forces, over time. This seminar thus suggests that you cannot understand modern presidential politics and contests, including the 2020 election and the upcoming 2024 election, without examining the historical antecedents that make the present-day moment possible. Consequently, while enrolled in this seminar, students will grapple with the following central question: what are the foundational moments in modern American social, political, and economic history that provided the “building blocks” for the 2024 United States Presidential Election? How can we use history to analyze and explain the developments of the 2024 election, as those moments are happening in real time?

• Days/Times: W 11:30AM - 2:00PM
• Instructor: Connolly, Nathan D; Wright Rigueur, Leah M
• Room: 555 Penn 740
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, HIST-US, AGRI-ELECT, CES-LSO

Introduction to the practice of global legal history, with focus on the growth of modern international law from the seventeenth century to the present, its relationship to nationalism and empire, war, atrocity-crimes and human rights, international institutions, and the relationship between law and history.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Loeffler, James
• Room: Latrobe 120
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-US, HIST-MIDEST, INST-GLOBAL, CES-LSO

The sixties were a polarizing decade of unrest, revolutions, and fundamental change across Europe and the US. We will discuss 1968 through the lens of Baltimore and national case studies, and contextualize it within the Cold War and decolonization. We’ll speak with eyewitnesses, work with archivists, high school students, and community partners in the city!

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Harms, Victoria Elisabeth
• Room: Krieger 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/20
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-EUROPE, HIST-US, CSC-CE, CES-CC

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Did you know that Brazil is very similar to the United States? This course is intended as an introduction to the culture and civilization of Brazil. It is designed to provide students with basic information about Brazilian history, politics, economy, art, literature, popular culture, theater, cinema, and music. The course will focus on how Indigenous, Asian, African, and European cultural influences have interacted to create the new and unique civilization that is Brazil today. The course is taught in English. No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: De Azeredo Cerqueira, Flavia Christina
• Room: Latrobe 107
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/30
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

This course will survey German ideas—in philosophy, social and political theory, and drama—since the Enlightenment. Authors include Kant, Schiller, Lessing, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Horkheimer, and Adorno.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Egginton, William
• Room: Hodson 315
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/21
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-PT, HIST-EUROPE, MLL-GERM

This course introduces students to the field of Africana Studies. It focuses on the historical experience, intellectual ideas, theories, and cultural production of African-descended people. We will consider how people of the black diaspora remember and encounter Africa. We will explore, too, how such people have lived, spoken, written, and produced art about colonialism and enslavement, gender and mobility, violence and pleasure. This course will be thematically organized and invite you to center your own stories about black people within your understanding of the modern world and its making.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Stocks, Shawntay
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): CES-ELECT, CES-RI

This course explores “critical university studies” through the lens of abolitionist thought, from W.E.B. DuBois to Ruth Wilson Gilmore. It historicizes universities’ growth within U.S. cities during the twentieth century.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Cumming, Daniel
• Room: Wyman Park N105
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 17/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course will serve as an intensive introduction to contemporary approaches to theories of gender and sexuality, and their relationship to cultural production and politics. Students will develop a historically situated knowledge of the development of feminist and queer scholarship in the 20th and 21st centuries, and consider the multiply intersecting forces which shape understandings of sexual and gender identity. We will consider both foundational questions (What is gender? Who is the subject of feminism? What defines queerness?) and questions of aesthetic and political strategy, and spend substantial time engaging with feminist and queer scholarship in comparative contexts. Students will be introduced to debates in Black feminism, intersectionality theory, third world feminism, socialist feminism, queer of colour critique, and trans* theory. We will read both canonical texts and recent works of scholarship, and the final weeks of the course will be devoted to thinking with our theoretical and historical readings against a selection of feminist and queer literature and cinema. No prior familiarity with the study of gender and sexuality is necessary.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 21/35
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

What does it mean that until relatively recently, the center of queer/trans culture was the underground – a metaphorical space of illegality – and what are the political possibilities of such illegality? This seminar will consider how Black/trans fugitivity and interracial sex, trans identity theft and forgery, black market hormones and silicone injections, sex work, and mood-altering drugs defined same-sex desiring and gender-variant cultures during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Far from being a lawless place, we will analyze how life in the underground, including stints in prison, concretely shaped gender and sexual possibilities, subcultural codes of conduct, and practices of community-making.

• Days/Times: Th 2:30PM - 5:00PM
• Instructor: Amin, Kadji
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course surveys museums, from their origins to their most contemporary forms, in the context of broader historical, intellectual, and cultural trends including the social movements of the 20th century. Anthropology, art, history, and science museums are considered. Crosslisted with Archaeology, History, History of Art, International Studies and Medicine, Science & Humanities.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room: Gilman 400
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, ARCH-ARCH, PMUS-INTRO, MSCH-HUM

Digital media play an increasingly significant role in museums from how museums share and narrate their collections online to the use of AI to catalog things and create metadata about them. This class explores critically how digital tools work to tell stories and invites students to unpack the resulting museum narratives. Students will learn by doing, creating a digital exhibit of five museum objects using Omeka and later transforming their exhibits by creating data of their own design to tell a new story about their objects. This new narrative will apply critical perspectives considered in the course such as, but not limited to, repatriation, critical cataloging, and geo-politics.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: McGinn, Emily
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE

This course will explore the landscape history of Baltimore City, including JHU’s Homewood campus, Evergreen Museum, and surrounding areas. Special attention will be paid to the role of the Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Olmsted design firm, who played an important role in the development of several Baltimore parks and neighborhoods. This class will culminate in either small student exhibition or creation of a public-facing tour.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Finkelstein, Lori
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR, ARCH-RELATE