Courses

Column one has the course number and section. Other columns show the course title, days offered, instructor's name, room number, if the course is cross-referenced with another program, and a option to view additional course information in a pop-up window.

Postwar Art, 1945-1989
AS.010.200 (01)

Critical survey of developments in the visual arts primarily in Europe and the United States from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, ranging from painting and sculpture to performance, photography, and video, with emphasis on the critical concepts and the aesthetic, social, and historical implications of new forms of artistic production and dissemination. Visits to the BMA and Special Collections, conditions permitting.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Warnock, Molly
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/15
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Speaking of Color
AS.010.348 (01)

A critical survey of modernism through the lens of color, drawing upon a broad array of writings by artists, art critics and art historians, critical theorists, and philosophers. At issue here is the inherent relationality of colored phenomena. How, we will ask, has writing about color served to allegorize broader conceptions of knowledge formation, subjectivity, and collectivity under modernism? How has color been assigned to or associated rhetorically with various social and political others? And what kind of work has color been asked to do in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; postcolonial theory; and even ecocriticism? Among our readings: Goethe, Le Corbusier, Duchamp, Wittgenstein, Kristeva, Cavell, Morton, Taussig.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
  • Instructor: Warnock, Molly
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/8
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Ancient Greek Mythology: Art, Narratives, and Modern Mythmaking
AS.040.121 (01)

This course focuses on major and often intricate myths and mythical patterns of thought as they are reflected in compelling ancient visual and textual narratives. Being one of the greatest treasure troves of the ancient world, these myths will further be considered in light of their rich reception in the medieval and modern world (including their reception in the modern fields of anthropology and philosophy).

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
  • Instructor: Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/18
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Religion, Music and Society in Ancient Greece
AS.040.126 (01)

Emphasis on ancient Greek ritual, music, religion, and society; and on cultural institutions such as symposia (drinking parties) and festivals.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/18
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Uncanny Valleys in Literature & Film
AS.211.335 (01)

When artificial humans too closely resemble actual human beings, feelings of eeriness or revulsion can be elicited in human observers - the ‘uncanny valley’ effect. Something to be avoided in robotics, in fiction this effect has been a source of endless fascination. Tales of the supernatural, science fiction and horror often use doubt about the human or non-human status of fictional characters to structure imaginary worlds. What can our engagement with artificial humans in fiction tell us about our own humanity? How can emotional entanglement with not-quite-human characters help us critically reflect on aspects of reality? Class will be discussion-based with accompanying readings from literary theory, philosophy, sociology and other fields addressing relevant themes. Authors may include ETA Hoffmann, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Kafka and Philip K. Dick. Films may include Blade Runner and Get Out.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/15
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

Monsters, Ghosts, and Golems
AS.211.347 (01)

Modern Jewish culture is full of monsters, ghosts, golems, dybbuks, and other occult creatures. We will study the rich religious and folkloric traditions that these works draw on in order to better understand why Yiddish, German, Hebrew, and English literature from the 19th century to the present and why film from its beginnings are so full of the occult and the supernatural. We will pay special attention to the ways that monsters, spirits, and the like were deployed in modernist literature and film, in order to ask and answer major questions about modernity: what are the social and aesthetic consequences of technology and automation? what aspects of human nature are revealed by new insights into the psyche? All readings in English.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Spinner, Samuel Jacob
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 11/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Animals and Animality in Literature and Philosophy
AS.213.360 (01)

(300-level, taught in English) critically engages the presentation and imagination of animals and other non-human life in modern literature, philosophy, and thought. We will examine the figure of the animal and the means of conceptual differentiation between the animal and the human, considering animals' relation to or perceived exclusion from language, pain, embodiment, sexuality, and the visual gaze. The course is ideal for students interested in fascinating themes in literature and how they reflect philosophical concerns. No prior courses in philosophy are required. Students will read philosophical texts alongside literary works in learning the conceptual history of animals and of humanity as a distinct species. Expect fascinating readings and engaging, lively discussions. Readings may include works by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger Derrida, Agamben, Poe, Kleist, Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Kafka, Mann, Pirandello, and Coetzee.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Gosetti, Jennifer Anna
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 7/10
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

Animals and Animality in Literature and Philosophy
AS.213.360 (02)

(300-level, taught in English) critically engages the presentation and imagination of animals and other non-human life in modern literature, philosophy, and thought. We will examine the figure of the animal and the means of conceptual differentiation between the animal and the human, considering animals' relation to or perceived exclusion from language, pain, embodiment, sexuality, and the visual gaze. The course is ideal for students interested in fascinating themes in literature and how they reflect philosophical concerns. No prior courses in philosophy are required. Students will read philosophical texts alongside literary works in learning the conceptual history of animals and of humanity as a distinct species. Expect fascinating readings and engaging, lively discussions. Readings may include works by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger Derrida, Agamben, Poe, Kleist, Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Kafka, Mann, Pirandello, and Coetzee.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Gosetti, Jennifer Anna
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/5
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

Great Minds
AS.300.102 (01)

Introductory survey of foundational texts of modern philosophy, social and political thought, and literature. This semester will include works by Plato, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Iris Murdoch, Cora Diamond, Judith Butler, Kwame A. Appiah, Jacques Derrida, and others. The course is taught in lectures and in seminar discussions.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Marrati, Paola
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 8/25
  • PosTag(s): INST-PT

Business Fictions
AS.300.227 (01)

When you are working for a company, how do you distinguish your ideas, actions, and responsibilities from the firms’—if that is even possible? What is corporate culture or a corporate person, and how is it similar or different from any other kind of culture or person? These and related questions inspired and fascinated writers from the nineteenth century through the present. By reading and thinking about short stories, novels, film, a television series, and a play, we will explore these issues and potential resolutions to them. The course especially considers how problems of action, agency, and responsibility become an intriguing challenge for writers of a variety of modern and contemporary fictions of the business world. Texts will include short stories by Herman Melville, Alice Munro, Ann Petry, and John Cheever; novels by Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Lydia Millet; films, plays, and television by Charlie Chaplin, David Mamet, and Dan Harmon (Community).

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa Michele
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Creating the Jazz Image
AS.300.318 (01)

What is jazz? What do we think of when we hear the term “jazz culture”? Where does it stand and how does it function in American culture and social history? In this course, we will look at ways in which jazz and one of its fundamental elements, improvisation, influence and is influenced by other forms of art. We will look at both at the history of the music and its relation to painting, design, photography, poetry, fiction, dance and film, as well as its impact on forming identities, social structures and political questions. We will discuss the role of jazz within the wider frameworks of race, gender, ethnicity, class, and nationality, as well as its status as an entertainment and art form up until late-60s.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Ince, Ezgi
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Contemporary Sinophone Literature and Film
AS.300.328 (01)

A survey of contemporary literature and film from the peripheries of the Chinese-speaking world, with a special focus on Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Europe. We will not only examine literary and filmic works in the contexts of the layered histories and contested politics of these locations, but will also reexamine, in light of those works, critical concepts in literary and cultural studies including, but not limited to, form, ideology, hegemony, identity, history, agency, translation, and (post)colonialism. All readings are in English; all films subtitled in English.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: WF 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

Modern East Asian Literatures Across Boundaries
AS.300.330 (01)

Modern literature in East Asia is as much defined by creation of national boundaries as by their transgressions, negotiations, and reimaginations. This course examines literature originally written in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in light of contemporary understandings of political, social, and cultural boundary demarcation and crossings. How do experiences of border-crossing create and/or alter literary forms? How, in turn, does literature inscribe, displace, and/or dismantle boundaries? Our readings will include, but not limited to, writings by intra- and trans-regional travelers, exiles, migrants, and settlers; stories from and on contested borderlands and islands (e.g. Manchuria, Okinawa, Jeju); and works and translations by bilingual authors. All readings are provided in English translation.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

From Chekhov to Chernobyl: Russian Literature of Environmental Catastrophe
AS.300.332 (01)

Environmental degradation and disaster offer a steady backdrop to the 20th century in Russia and the Soviet Union. While the Soviet regime promised mastery over the environment and Russian culture valorized the harmonization of humans with the natural world, environmental catastrophe proved the folly of those dreams. We will read works by authors who have grappled with this ongoing catastrophe and its implications for relations between human beings and the world. Texts range from short stories and novellas to modernist experimental fiction and documentary prose. We will also engage with materials in special collections and screen selected films. Authors include: Chekhov, Bulgakov, Platonov, Solzhenitsyn, Rasputin, Petrushevskaya, and the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Eakin Moss, Anne
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Literature and Film of Unintended Consequences
AS.300.340 (01)

Sometimes brilliant ideas and plans don’t work as anticipated, or go very badly—for example, empowering the “invisible hand” of the market, building a huge hydroelectric dam, or plotting a double murder by two strangers. This course explores these and other fascinating literary instances of unintended consequences—the unanticipated results of actions that people planned ending up a very different way. Reading or watching mainly twentieth-century American literature and movies, as well as some essays and poetry, we will follow a range of different creators as they think about unplanned effects and why they matter. What can these works tell us about how we intend, act, or make meaning at the limits of our control? Texts will include films by Charlie Chaplin, Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock, poetry or fiction by Wallace Stevens, Patricia Highsmith, and Zadie Smith.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
  • Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa Michele
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

The Modernist Novel: James, Woolf, and Joyce
AS.300.418 (01)

In this course, we will survey the major works of three of the greatest, most relentless innovators of the twentieth century – Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce – who explored and exploded narrative techniques for depicting what Woolf called the “luminous halo” of life.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Poetics and Politics of Sex: Gender and Modernity
AS.363.335 (01)

This course explores the complex and diverse ways in which gender and sexuality have been imagined, constituted and unsettled by the artistic creations and political institutions of modernity around the world. Emphasizing the close relationship between politics and aesthetics, we will study works of cinema and literature to gain a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality with respect to some of the themes of modernity, such as human rights, modernism, psychoanalysis, religion and secularism, the postcolonial order and globalization. Each week, selections from a literary or cinematic work will be paired with a theoretical reading that responds to similar themes and concerns.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Sirin, Hale
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/12
  • PosTag(s): INST-PT

Imagining Climate Change
AS.365.100 (03)

Climate change poses an existential threat to human civilization. Yet the attention and concern it receives in ordinary life and culture is nowhere near what science tells us is required. What are the causes of this mismatch between crisis and response? What accounts for our collective inability to imagine and grasp this new reality, and how can it be overcome? In pursuit of these questions, we will pair literary works and films with texts from politics, philosophy, literary theory, and religion, that frame climate change as a fundamental challenge to our ways of making sense of the human condition.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
  • Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Digital Photography
AS.371.152 (01)

In this foundation course students learn to use their digital cameras through a variety of projects that will help them develop technical and creative skills. Frequent critiques of students work and slide lectures of historic photographs, which range from postmortem daguerreotypes to postmodern digital imagery, help students develop a personal vision. Students gain proficiency with post processing software including Lightroom and Photoshop, culminating in a final project of their choice. Cameras are provided for students during the semester. Attendance at first class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: Th 10:00AM - 12:50PM
  • Instructor: Berger, Phyllis A
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Black & White: Digital Darkroom
AS.371.162 (01)

In this digital photography course, students explore the beauty and drama of the black- and-white aesthetic. Students learn the elements of composition, style and content through discussions of historic and contemporary imagery. They gain proficiency in Photoshop, Lightroom, and NIK software. Projects enhance students’ artistic vision and include the Evocative Landscape, Surrealism, and a DADA collage. Students work on a final project of their choice. Digital SLRs are provided. Attendance at 1st class is mandatory. Camera experience is a plus but not a requirement. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: F 10:00AM - 12:50PM
  • Instructor: Berger, Phyllis A
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Documentary Photography
AS.371.303 (01)

In this course, we will explore different genres and approaches to documentary photography and the questions inherent to this mode of image-making like representation, storytelling, records and archives, journalism, community engagement, research and personal perspective. Baltimore neighborhoods and contemporary issues will provide inspiration for student work. Students will learn camera operation, photo editing and produce a final documentary project on a subject of their choice as the culmination of their semester’s work. Digital SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance at first class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:30PM
  • Instructor: Mckone, Jonna
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.010.200 (01)Postwar Art, 1945-1989TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMWarnock, Molly HART-MODERN
AS.010.348 (01)Speaking of ColorT 4:00PM - 6:30PMWarnock, Molly HART-MODERN
AS.040.121 (01)Ancient Greek Mythology: Art, Narratives, and Modern MythmakingTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMYatromanolakis, Dimitrios 
AS.040.126 (01)Religion, Music and Society in Ancient GreeceTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMYatromanolakis, Dimitrios 
AS.211.335 (01)Uncanny Valleys in Literature & FilmMW 1:30PM - 2:45PMGrousdanidou, Antonia GRLL-ENGL
AS.211.347 (01)Monsters, Ghosts, and GolemsTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMSpinner, Samuel Jacob 
AS.213.360 (01)Animals and Animality in Literature and PhilosophyM 1:30PM - 4:00PMGosetti, Jennifer Anna GRLL-ENGL
AS.213.360 (02)Animals and Animality in Literature and PhilosophyM 1:30PM - 4:00PMGosetti, Jennifer Anna GRLL-ENGL
AS.300.102 (01)Great MindsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMMarrati, Paola INST-PT
AS.300.227 (01)Business FictionsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMSiraganian, Lisa Michele 
AS.300.318 (01)Creating the Jazz ImageTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMInce, Ezgi 
AS.300.328 (01)Contemporary Sinophone Literature and FilmWF 12:00PM - 1:15PMHashimoto, Satoru INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.330 (01)Modern East Asian Literatures Across BoundariesF 1:30PM - 4:00PMHashimoto, Satoru INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.332 (01)From Chekhov to Chernobyl: Russian Literature of Environmental CatastropheW 1:30PM - 4:00PMEakin Moss, Anne INST-GLOBAL, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR
AS.300.340 (01)Literature and Film of Unintended ConsequencesTTh 4:30PM - 5:45PMSiraganian, Lisa Michele 
AS.300.418 (01)The Modernist Novel: James, Woolf, and JoyceMW 12:00PM - 1:15PMOng, Yi-Ping 
AS.363.335 (01)Poetics and Politics of Sex: Gender and ModernityTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMSirin, Hale INST-PT
AS.365.100 (03)Imagining Climate ChangeTTh 9:00AM - 10:15AMLisi, Leonardo 
AS.371.152 (01)Introduction to Digital PhotographyTh 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis A 
AS.371.162 (01)Black & White: Digital DarkroomF 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis A 
AS.371.303 (01)Documentary PhotographyM 1:30PM - 4:30PMMckone, Jonna