Courses

The courses listed below are provided by the JHU Public Course Search. This listing provides a snapshot of immediately available courses and may not be complete.

Students are required to take ten graduate level courses (600-level) for grades in their first two years of study. Of the ten graded courses, five must be courses offered by the core faculty in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature, including a mandatory pro-seminar on comparative methods and theory for all incoming students in the fall semester of their first year.

Course # (Section)	Title	Day/Times	Instructor	Location	Term	Additional Details
AS.150.687 (01)	Philosophies of History	W 1:30PM - 4:00PM	Moyar, Dean	Gilman 55	Spring 2026	Description: Is there a purpose to history? Under what descriptions does history make sense? This course will examine the idea of philosophy of history as it arose in classic German philosophy (esp. Kant and Hegel) and was transformed by radical thinkers in reaction to that original program (Marx, Nietzsche). The last part of the course will examine twentieth century philosophies of history, including those of Spengler, Toynbee, Koselleck, and Fukuyama. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/8 Tags: PHIL-MODERN, PHIL-ETHICS
AS.211.604 (01)	Singularities: Literary writing and sensory experience	M 3:00PM - 5:00PM	Egginton, William	Gilman 208	Spring 2026	Description: In this seminar we will focus on the relation between literary writing and seemingly ineffable sensory experience. Literary texts will include Teresa de Avila, Juan de la Cruz, Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector, José Donoso, and James Joyce. We will also read philosophical texts by Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 0/16 Tags: n/a
AS.211.791 (01)	Film Theory and Critical Methods	F 1:00PM - 3:00PM	Schilling, Derek; Staff	Gilman 479	Spring 2026	Description: Placed at the crossroads of aesthetics and politics, psychology and economics, the history of technology and popular culture, film has emerged as the interdisciplinary object of study par excellence. Based on intensive weekly viewing and on classic and contemporary statements in film theory, this seminar²required for the Graduate Certificate in Film and Media²opens up questions of film language, authorship, genre, spectatorship, gender, technology, and the status of national and transnational cinemas. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 6/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.609 (01)	Old/New Questions: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Scholarship in the Humanities	W 8:30AM - 10:15AM	El Guabli, Brahim	Gilman 208	Spring 2026	Description: The academic profession is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. However, in many cases, graduate training has yet to fully adapt to this shift. Beyond the changing nature of knowledge production, which now requires scholars to engage with fields of expertise that might not have been necessary in the past, institutions—especially liberal arts colleges—are seeking candidates who can work across disciplines to fill gaps in their curricula and foster collaborative scholarly synergies with colleagues in other fields. Moreover, academia is shaped by both continuities and interruptions, and interdisciplinary scholarship, with its venture-friendly approaches, offers a way for students to revisit old questions and explore new ones by endeavoring to explore uncharted paths. Hence, students in the humanities will benefit from both the opportunities and the challenges that come with engagement with interdisciplinary critical approaches. This year-long seminar draws on the experience of a broad pool of interdisciplinary scholars at Johns Hopkins University. It seeks to introduce students to a variety of conceptual, epistemic, experiential, experimental, and methodological approaches that JHU faculty members have used to produce interdisciplinary knowledge. Students will have the opportunity to hear directly from these faculty members, read their work, and discuss the processes and methodological choices they made—or chose not to make—in their interdisciplinary work. By revisiting old questions and raising new ones from an interdisciplinary perspective, this seminar will help incoming graduate students in the humanities develop a deeper appreciation for interdisciplinary scholarship and gain insight into the professional opportunities that can arise from proactively embracing approaches that span multiple disciplines. The students will also have opportunities to collaborate with each other throughout the year. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 1/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.611 (01)	Schopenhauer’s ‘The World as Will and Representation’	F 1:30PM - 4:00PM	Lisi, Leonardo	Gilman 208	Spring 2026	Description: A close reading of Schopenhauer’s magnum opus, one of the most influential works of philosophy in 19th- and 20th-century literature and art. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 11/15 Tags: n/a
AS.300.614 (01)	Comparative Thought: Pass-words Across Zhuangzi, Thoreau, and Heidegger	T 1:30PM - 4:00PM	Bennett, Jane; Culbert, Jennifer	Gilman 208	Spring 2026	Description: Exploration of key terms, such as “action,” “uncertainty,” and “change,” as they resonate across the works of three authors, each associated with a different tradition of thought: Zhuangzi (ancient Daoism), Thoreau (American transcendentalism), and Heidegger (German phenomenology). Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 3/10 Tags: CTAL-TEXT
AS.300.633 (01)	Departmental Seminar	W 10:30AM - 12:00PM	Hashimoto, Satoru	Gilman 208	Spring 2026	Description: Presentations by faculty, students, and invited speakers. Credits: 1.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 6/12 Tags: n/a
AS.300.800 (02)	Independent Study		El Guabli, Brahim		Spring 2026	Description: In this semester-long independent research course for graduate students on Forms of Moral Community, students will have one-on-one assignments and check-in's with the designated faculty throughout the term. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 0/1 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (01)	Independent Study Field Exam		Marrati, Paola		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (03)	Independent Study Field Exam		El Guabli, Brahim		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (04)	Independent Study Field Exam		Ong, Yi-Ping		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (05)	Independent Study Field Exam		Hashimoto, Satoru		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (01)	Dissertation Research		Marrati, Paola		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (02)	Dissertation Research		Bennett, Jane		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 7/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (03)	Dissertation Research		Lisi, Leonardo		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 9/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (04)	Dissertation Research		Ong, Yi-Ping		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 9/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (05)	Dissertation Research		Siraganian, Lisa		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 8/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (06)	Dissertation Research		Hashimoto, Satoru		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (07)	Dissertation Research		Schmelz, Peter John		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (08)	Dissertation Research		El Guabli, Brahim		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 9/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (15)	Dissertation Research		Egginton, William		Spring 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 9/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.810 (01)	Directed Readings		Egginton, William		Spring 2026	Description: Directed Readings Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.812 (01)	Graduate Research		Bennett, Jane		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate Research Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 15/15 Tags: n/a
AS.300.812 (02)	Graduate Research		Giardini, Jo Aurelio		Spring 2026	Description: Graduate Research Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 15/15 Tags: n/a
AS.300.813 (01)	Teaching Assistantship		Bennett, Jane		Spring 2026	Description: Teaching assistants are required to register for this course. See handbook for details. Credits: 3.00 Status: Closed Seats Available: 5/6 Tags: n/a
AS.360.605 (01)	Introduction to Computational Methods for the Humanities	TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM	Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale	Bloomberg 168	Spring 2026	Description: 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. Credits: 3.00 Status: Canceled Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.360.606 (01)	Computational Intelligence for the Humanities	TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM	Messner, Craig A	Bloomberg 168	Spring 2026	Description: 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. Credits: 3.00 Status: Canceled Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (01)	Summer Research		Marrati, Paola		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 20/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (02)	Summer Research		Siraganian, Lisa		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 20/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (03)	Summer Research		Lisi, Leonardo		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 20/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (04)	Summer Research		Hashimoto, Satoru		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 20/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (05)	Summer Research		Ong, Yi-Ping		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 20/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (06)	Summer Research		Bennett, Jane		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 18/20 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (07)	Summer Research		Schmelz, Peter John		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 4/4 Tags: n/a
AS.300.891 (08)	Summer Research		El Guabli, Brahim		Summer 2026	Description: Summer Research Credits: 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 3/4 Tags: n/a
AS.211.606 (01)	The Author’s Responsibility	M 1:00PM - 3:00PM	Stahl, Neta	Gilman 479	Fall 2026	Description: The overarching goal of this seminar is to study the connection between aesthetics and responsibility, but the more specific question we will ask is: What is the author's responsibility in the face of injustice? Drawing on philosophical literature and texts from various genres, we will examine changes in the status of the author in Western culture. We will look at the influence of changes in the meanings of authorship in the post-Roland Barthes “death of the author” and the post-deconstruction era, and will explore the question of today’s authors/poets’ sense of responsibility to social, political, environmental, and racial injustice and ask how their sense of responsibility is reflected in their works. Credits: 3.00 Status: Canceled Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.213.606 (01)	The Melancholic Imagination	Th 2:00PM - 4:00PM	Tobias, Rochelle	Gilman 479	Fall 2026	Description: Melancholia is marked by two competing tendencies: on the one hand, it clings to the objects of this world as if they could provide a path to transcendence and, on the other, it recognizes the weight of these objects, their transience, and concomitant senselessness. This course will examine the melancholic disposition from Robert Burton’s 1621 tome The Anatomy of Melancholy onward to Martin Heidegger’s analysis of boredom in Being and Time. We will consider the religious dimensions of melancholia as explored in different contexts by Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg and will pay particular attention to Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel while reflecting on literary works by Flaubert, Adrian, Chekhov, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Pessoa, Rilke, and W. G. Sebald. Credits: 3.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 8/15 Tags: n/a
AS.213.634 (01)	Phenomenology of Literature	W 1:00PM - 3:00PM	Gosetti, Jennifer Anna	Gilman 479	Fall 2026	Description: Phenomenology of Literature is a graduate-level course devoted to exploring the vital interchanges between philosophy and literature in the 20th century, focusing on the roots of phenomenology in German philosophy, its adaptations in French theory, and its connections with and expansion to literary writing. Themes may include: the nature of literary experience, including the experience of reading and writing, the acts of attention in literature, phenomenological and literary descriptions of reality, the literary construction of the self, the nature of perspective, intersubjectivity, limit-experiences, the phenomenology of literary imagination, and ecophenomenology in literature. We will read philosophical and theoretical texts by Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Blanchot, Beauvoir, Bachelard, and Ricoeur in connection with literary works, which may include fiction and poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, and Wallace Stevens, among others. This course is taught in English with texts available in translation, but those participants with language capacities in the relevant language are welcome to use original language texts. Credits: 3.00 Status: Waitlist Only Seats Available: 0/12 Tags: n/a
AS.213.702 (01)	Aesthetic Judgment, Political Agency: Kant to Kafka	T 3:00PM - 5:00PM	Frey, Christiane	Gilman 443	Fall 2026	Description: Following Hannah Arendt’s seminal claim that Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” contains his unwritten political philosophy, this seminar investigates how the structure of aesthetic judgment defines the possibilities of political agency. We begin with Kant’s aesthetic theory and Arendt’s “Lectures on Kant” to understand how the ability to think from the standpoint of others constitutes the core of the political. Through this lens, we trace the genealogy of aesthetics from Baumgarten’s sensuous cognition to Herder’s empathy, Schiller’s aesthetic education, and Novalis’ poetics of the state. The course then examines exemplary and radical challenges to these models: the fanaticism of justice in Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas,” the aesthetic appeal for social justice in Bettina von Arnim’s “This Book Belongs to the King,” the fragmented political consciousness in Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” the transition from disinterested distance to radical attention in Simone Weil, and finally, the law as inscrutable form in Kafka’s “The Trial.” Readings include: Baumgarten, Kant, Herder, Schiller, Novalis, Kleist, Arnim, Arendt, Weil, Woolf, and Kafka. Credits: 3.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 5/12 Tags: n/a
AS.300.616 (01)	Heidegger’s Being and Time	F 1:30PM - 4:00PM	Lisi, Leonardo	Gilman 217	Fall 2026	Description: This year marks the centenary of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, arguably the most important work of philosophy in the 20th century. Often considered an impenetrable book, in this course we will aim at a clear and jargon-free understanding of the overarching stakes and shape of its argument, as well as its individual passages and steps. To that end, we will work our way through the text as closely and systematically as possible. Credits: 3.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 3/8 Tags: n/a
AS.300.621 (01)	Thinking with Accidents	Th 1:45PM - 4:15PM	Siraganian, Lisa	Gilman 208	Fall 2026	Description: When is an action or a work of art just an accident--and when should it be called intentional? This course explores the problems and complications of willed actions, accidents, and unintended consequences. We will follow (primarily but not exclusively) a range of different modernist writers, surrealist and dada artists, noir filmmakers, and twentieth-century philosophers as they contemplate what an intentional action is or is not. What can these works tell us about how we make meaning at the limits of our control? Includes literature of Wallace Stevens, Nathanael West, James Cain, Patricia Highsmith, and Ann Petry; films of Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Justine Triet; art of Marcel Duchamp and André Breton; and philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Philippa Foot. Credits: 3.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 8/12 Tags: n/a
AS.300.633 (01)	Departmental Seminar	W 10:30AM - 12:00PM	Hashimoto, Satoru		Fall 2026	Description: Presentations by faculty, students, and invited speakers. Credits: 1.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 12/12 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (01)	Independent Study Field Exam		Marrati, Paola		Fall 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Approval Required Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.802 (05)	Independent Study Field Exam		Hashimoto, Satoru		Fall 2026	Description: Graduate student having directed work with a specific faculty. Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Approval Required Seats Available: 5/5 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (01)	Dissertation Research		Marrati, Paola		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (02)	Dissertation Research		Bennett, Jane		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (03)	Dissertation Research		Lisi, Leonardo		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 9/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (04)	Dissertation Research		Ong, Yi-Ping		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (05)	Dissertation Research		Siraganian, Lisa		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (06)	Dissertation Research		Hashimoto, Satoru		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (07)	Dissertation Research		Schmelz, Peter John		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 2/2 Tags: n/a
AS.300.803 (15)	Dissertation Research: Independent Study		Egginton, William		Fall 2026	Description: Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations. Credits: 10.00 - 20.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 10/10 Tags: n/a
AS.300.812 (01)	Graduate Research		Bennett, Jane		Fall 2026	Description: Graduate Research Credits: 3.00 - 9.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 15/15 Tags: n/a
AS.300.813 (01)	Teaching Assistantship		Bennett, Jane		Fall 2026	Description: Teaching assistants are required to register for this course. See handbook for details. Credits: 3.00 Status: Open Seats Available: 6/6 Tags: n/a