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.

Old World/New World Women
AS.060.388 (01)

The course considers the transatlantic writing of three women in the early modern period, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, and Phillis Wheatley. We will consider issues of identity, spatiality, religion, commerce, enforced labor, sexuality, race, and gender, along with literary tradition, formal analysis and poetics. We will read a good deal of these early women writers. Foremost in our mind will be the question of how perceptions of space and time are mediated through the global experiences of early modernity.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 7/18
  • PosTag(s): ENGL-PR1800

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

Modern Jewish literature and film 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
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 9/15
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

Witchcraft and Demonology in Literature and the Arts
AS.211.477 (01)

Who were the witches? Why were they persecuted for hundreds of years? Why were women identified as the witches par excellence? How many witches were put to death between 1400 and 1800? What traits did European witch-mythologies share with other societies? After the witch-hunts ended, how did “The Witch” go from being “monstrous” to being “admirable” and even “sexy”? Answers are found in history and anthropology, but also in theology,literature, folklore, music, and the visual arts, including cinema.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 13/70
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL

Museums and Identity
AS.211.329 (01)

The museum boom of the last half-century has centered largely around museums dedicated to the culture and history of identity groups, including national, ethnic, religious, and minority groups. In this course we will examine such museums and consider their long history through a comparison of the theory and practice of Jewish museums with other identity museums. We will study the various museological traditions that engage identity, including the collection of art and antiquities, ethnographic exhibitions, history museums, heritage museums, art museums, and other museums of culture. Some of the questions we will ask include: what are museums for and who are they for? how do museums shape identity? and how do the various types of museums relate to one another? Our primary work will be to examine a variety of contemporary examples around the world with visits to local museums including the Jewish Museum of Maryland, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/12
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, INST-GLOBAL

Gendered Voices
AS.211.374 (01)

The course will explore the notion of ‘voice’ in order to show how poetry, literature, philosophy, and music have been dealing with it throughout the ages. In particular, by focusing on classical figures such as the Sirens, Circe and Echo, as well as by considering the seminal discussions of the 'voice' in Plato and Aristotle, the course will address the gendered nature of the voice as a tool to seduce and manipulate the human mind. More specifically, the course will discuss the ways in which male, female, queer, gendered and un-gendered voices embody different functions. Course materials include classical, medieval and early modern sources as well as later rewritings of myths concerned with the voice by authors such as Jules Verne, Karen Blixen, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and Italo Calvino. A selection of theoretical works (e.g. Cavarero, Silverman, Dollar, Butler) will also be discussed. The course is taught in English and all materials will be available in English translation; Italian majors and minors should enroll in section 2.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/14
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL

The Authoritarian Image: Russian Cinema from Stalin to Putin
AS.300.331 (01)

Vladimir Putin’s charismatic authority has a deep history in Russian culture. We’ll investigate that history through cinema, which Lenin called “the most important of the arts.” While Soviet cinema often served as immersive propaganda, directors also found ways to question authority and power. Films to be screened range from Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1944) to the 2013 documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. This course will combine study of Russian and Soviet culture from the end of World War II to the present with study of film history, style, and technique.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 5/18
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-NWHIST

Reflections on Modernity
AS.213.423 (01)

Taught in English. Reflections on Modernity takes up the problems conflicts, and possibilities of modernity in aesthetic, literary, and philosophical texts. Questions about the modern self, our relationship to nature, to urban experience, to history and language, and the role of the artist and writer in reflecting on modern life. Texts include works by such authors as Kant, Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Weber, Rilke, Hofmannsthal, Simmel, Heidegger, Habermas, Foucault.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Gendered Voices
AS.211.374 (02)

The course will explore the notion of ‘voice’ in order to show how poetry, literature, philosophy, and music have been dealing with it throughout the ages. In particular, by focusing on classical figures such as the Sirens, Circe and Echo, as well as by considering the seminal discussions of the 'voice' in Plato and Aristotle, the course will address the gendered nature of the voice as a tool to seduce and manipulate the human mind. More specifically, the course will discuss the ways in which male, female, queer, gendered and un-gendered voices embody different functions. Course materials include classical, medieval and early modern sources as well as later rewritings of myths concerned with the voice by authors such as Jules Verne, Karen Blixen, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and Italo Calvino. A selection of theoretical works (e.g. Cavarero, Silverman, Dollar, Butler) will also be discussed. The course is taught in English and all materials will be available in English translation; Italian majors and minors should enroll in section 2.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/5
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL

Why Poetry Matters: Poets Between Lies and Truth in the English and Italian Renaissance
AS.211.351 (01)

Does poetry participate in the quest for truth and knowledge? How does it compare to other such disciplines as history or philosophy? Are poets liars or do they have a deeper gaze on reality than anyone else? To answer these questions, this course studies poetry’s role within the different fields of human learning in the Renaissance. We will focus on the English and Italian tradition, reading texts by John Milton and Torquato Tasso, and explore the classical roots of the debate around poetry (Aristotle, Plato, Horace). We will then examine the relationship between science and literature through the work of Galileo Galilei. We will also study rare and ancient books in our library. The course is taught in English. All readings will be in English, but the original texts will also be available.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Canceled
  • Seats Available: 12/12
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL

Great Minds
AS.300.102 (01)

Introductory survey of foundational texts of modern Western literature and thought. This semester will include works by René Descartes, Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, Virginia Woolf, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault, Cora Diamond, and Stanley Cavell. The course is taught in lectures and seminar discussions led by the course faculty.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 7/25
  • PosTag(s): INST-PT

Forms of Moral Community: The Contemporary World Novel
AS.300.336 (01)

Literary and philosophical imaginations of moral community in the post-WWII period (1950-2001). Texts include: Coetzee, Disgrace; McEwan, Atonement;Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World; Roy, The God of Small Things; Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Mistry, A Fine Balance;Morrison, Beloved; and essays by Levi, Strawson, Adorno, Murdoch, Beauvoir and Barthes on the deep uncertainty over moral community after the crisis of World War II. Close attention to novelistic style and narrative will inform our study of the philosophical questions that animate these works. What does it means to acknowledge another person’s humanity? Who are the members of a moral community? Why do we hold one another responsible for our actions? How do fundamental moral emotions such as contempt, humiliation, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, and regret reveal the limits of a moral community?

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 10/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Capitalism and Tragedy: from the 18th Century to Climate Change
AS.300.349 (01)

In contemporary discussions of climate change, it is an increasingly prevalent view that capitalism will lead to the destruction of civilization as we know it. The notion that capitalism is hostile to what makes human life worth living, however, is one that stretches back at least to the early eighteenth century. In this class, we will examine key moments in the history of this idea in works of literature, philosophy, and politics, from the birth of bourgeois tragedy in the 1720s, through topics such as imperialism and economic exploitation, to the prospects of our ecological future today. Authors to be studied: George Lillo, Balzac, Dickens, Marx and Engels, Ibsen, Weber, Brecht, Arthur Miller, Steinbeck, Pope Francis, and contemporary fiction, politics and philosophy on climate change.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/15
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

Cartooning
AS.371.140 (01)

Not open to Freshmen. A history-and-practice overview for students of the liberal arts. The conceptual basis and historical development of cartooning is examined in both artistic and social contexts. Class sessions consist of lecture (slides/handouts), exercises, and ongoing assignments. Topics include visual/narrative analysis, symbol & satire, editorial/political cartoons, character development, animation. Basic drawing skills are preferred but not required.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 0/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Stories of hysteria
AS.300.439 (01)

Many are the stories that recount episodes of hysteria, and we owe them not only to medicine. To the modern observer, they are a puzzle, involving strange beliefs about wandering wombs, demonic possession, and female virtue (or lack thereof). Closer to our time, contemporary media, as well as accounts in the social and clinical sciences have evoked cases of “mass hysteria” in America and across the globe. Marriage, it was thought for a long time, might be the best cure, which might be the reason case-studies of this illness can be as intriguing and troubling as novels. Against a backdrop of medical and historical materials, we will examine a selection of stories, from the 17th century onward, that evoke aspects of hysteria. They serve as our case-studies and as prompts to study an illness born at the convergence of histories and myths, of medical science, and of cultural and gender assumptions. Among the notions we will explore: The birth of psychoanalysis, trauma and PTSD, the concept of repression, the visual aspects of an illness and its spread in the arts, including cinema.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/20
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Photoshop/Digital Darkroom
AS.371.151 (01)

Photoshop is not only the digital darkroom for processing images created with digital cameras; it is also a creative application for making original artwork. In this course, students use Photoshop software as a tool to produce images from a fine art perspective, working on projects that demand creative thinking while gaining technical expertise. Students will make archival prints, have regular critiques, and attend lectures on the history of the manipulated image and its place in culture. We will look at art movements which inspire digital artists, including 19th-century collage, dada, surrealism, and the zeitgeist of Hollywood films. Students must have a digital SLR camera. Prior knowledge of Photoshop is not required. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS; no need to email.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 2/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Documentary Photography
AS.371.303 (01)

In this course, we will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photojournalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. Field trips offer opportunities to explore Baltimore neighborhoods such as The East Side, Station North and Baltimore’s old Chinatown. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Digital SLR are available on loan for the semester. Attendance in first class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 2/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

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

In this digital course, students explore the black- and-white aesthetic. They develop camera skills on field trips into the city and countryside. Students meet frequently for critiques and discussions based on historic and contemporary imagery. They will learn to use Lightroom and Photoshop for image adjustment. Techniques such as high dynamic range, duotone, panorama and infrared will be covered. Students work on a final project of their choice and produce a portfolio of prints. Digital SLRs are provided. Attendance at 1st class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 1/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Digital Photography
AS.371.152 (01)

Students learn to use their digital cameras through a variety of documentary, landscape and portrait projects, which will help them develop technical and creative skills. Critiques and slide lectures of historic photographs, which range from postmortem daguerreotypes to postmodern digital imagery, help students develop a personal vision. Students are provided digital SLR cameras and gain proficiency with one-on-one instruction in the field. Basics for print adjustment and output will be covered. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS; no need to email.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Black & White: Digital Darkroom
AS.371.162 (02)

In this digital course, students explore the black- and-white aesthetic. They develop camera skills on field trips into the city and countryside. Students meet frequently for critiques and discussions based on historic and contemporary imagery. They will learn to use Lightroom and Photoshop for image adjustment. Techniques such as high dynamic range, duotone, panorama and infrared will be covered. Students work on a final project of their choice and produce a portfolio of prints. Digital SLRs are provided. Attendance at 1st class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Closed
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Seeing Like a Woman
AS.300.367 (01)

What does it mean to “see,” think, desire, feel, speak, act, or write “like a woman”? Gendered notions of seeing have had an impact on politics and society long before the #metoo movement and far beyond debates about women’s rights in isolation. This seminar examines the issues of female desire, subjectivity, spectatorship and performance in fiction, poetry, memoir and film from a variety of cultures and theoretical perspectives. This is not a course on “the image of the woman” in literature, film or politics, but a course in which we examine the ways in which both male and female theorists, novelists, poets, and filmmakers have imagined how women “see,” feel, think and behave.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/18
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.060.388 (01)Old World/New World WomenM 1:30PM - 4:00PMAchinstein, SharonGilman 400ENGL-PR1800
AS.211.347 (01)Monsters, Ghosts, and GolemsW 1:30PM - 4:00PMSpinner, Samuel JacobHodson 311GRLL-ENGL
AS.211.477 (01)Witchcraft and Demonology in Literature and the ArtsMW 12:00PM - 1:15PMStephens, Walter ELevering ArellanoGRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL
AS.211.329 (01)Museums and IdentityTTh 3:00PM - 4:15PMSpinner, Samuel JacobGilman 443GRLL-ENGL, INST-GLOBAL
AS.211.374 (01)Gendered VoicesTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMRefini, EugenioMaryland 202GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL
AS.300.331 (01)The Authoritarian Image: Russian Cinema from Stalin to PutinTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMEakin Moss, AnneGilman 208INST-GLOBAL, INST-NWHIST
AS.213.423 (01)Reflections on ModernityT 3:00PM - 5:30PMGosetti, Jennifer AnnaGilman 219
AS.211.374 (02)Gendered VoicesTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMRefini, EugenioMaryland 202GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL
AS.211.351 (01)Why Poetry Matters: Poets Between Lies and Truth in the English and Italian RenaissanceTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMBrenna, FrancescoBloomberg 172GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL
AS.300.102 (01)Great MindsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMMarrati, PaolaGilman 208INST-PT
AS.300.336 (01)Forms of Moral Community: The Contemporary World NovelWF 12:00PM - 1:15PMOng, Yi-PingGilman 208
AS.300.349 (01)Capitalism and Tragedy: from the 18th Century to Climate ChangeTh 1:30PM - 4:00PMLisi, LeonardoGilman 208GRLL-ENGL
AS.371.140 (01)CartooningM 1:30PM - 4:20PMChalkley, ThomasMattin Center 208
AS.300.439 (01)Stories of hysteriaTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMEnder, EvelyneGilman 400
AS.371.151 (01)Photoshop/Digital DarkroomM 10:00AM - 12:50PMEhrenfeld, HowardMattin Center 204
AS.371.303 (01)Documentary PhotographyF 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.371.162 (01)Black & White: Digital DarkroomW 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.371.152 (01)Introduction to Digital PhotographyT 10:00AM - 12:50PMEhrenfeld, HowardMattin Center 204
AS.371.162 (02)Black & White: Digital DarkroomW 2:00PM - 4:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.300.367 (01)Seeing Like a WomanT 1:30PM - 4:00PMEakin Moss, AnneGilman 208

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.

Documentary Photography
AS.371.303 (21)

In this course, we will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photojournalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. Field trips offer opportunities to work in the field. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Students will be loaned a digital SLR for the semester.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 8/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

The "Crisis" of the Humanities
AS.300.184 (11)

This class will investigate the cliche that the humanities are in "crisis." We will look at the most prominent critiques and defenses of the humanities in public intellectual culture and evaluate them through philosophical accounts of the aims of education. Questions to be explored include: Why study the humanities? What is the place of the humanities within the modern university? And “So, what are you going to do with that?"

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 29/30
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.371.303 (21)Documentary PhotographyMWTh 2:00PM - 5:15PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.300.184 (11)The "Crisis" of the HumanitiesMWF 1:00PM - 4:15PMMccreary, Michael DGilman 208

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.

Existentialism in Literature and Philosophy
AS.213.374 (01)

This course explores the themes of existentialism, including the meaning of existence, the nature of the self, authenticity and inauthenticity, the inescapability of death, the experience of time, anxiety, freedom and responsibility to others, in literary and philosophical works. It will be examined why these philosophical ideas often seem to demand literary expression, or bear a close relation to literary works. Readings may include writings by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, Rilke, Kafka, Simmel, Jaspers, Buber, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/15
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL

The Holocaust in Film and Literature
AS.211.333 (01)

How has the Holocaust been represented in literature and film? Are there special challenges posed by genocide to the traditions of visual and literary representation? Where does the Holocaust fit in to the array of concerns that the visual arts and literature express? And where do art and literature fit in to the commemoration of communal tragedy and the working through of individual trauma entailed by thinking about and representing the Holocaust? These questions will guide our consideration of a range of texts — nonfiction, novels, poetry — in Yiddish, German, English, French and other languages (including works by Primo Levi and Isaac Bashevis Singer), as well as films from French documentaries to Hollywood blockbusters (including films by Alain Resnais, Claude Lanzmann, and Steven Spielberg). All readings in English.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 5/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

Challenge to Painting: Collage, Montage, Assemblage
AS.010.422 (01)

The invention of Cubist collage is generally regarded as a watershed in twentieth-century art. This seminar will examine key junctures in the rapid proliferation and redefinition of collage strategies primarily in Europe and the United States, including but not limited to Futurist “words in liberty”; Dada and Constructivist photomontage; the Surrealist exploration of desire; Situationist "détournement"; and selected varieties of postwar assemblage. Frequent meetings in Special Collections.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/8
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Freshman Seminar: Tolstoy's War and Peace
AS.300.237 (01)

Leo Tolstoy’s monumental novel War and Peace, which the author Henry James called “a loose baggy monster,” is a sui generis work of modern literature that offered a response and challenge to the European Realist novel and founded a Russian national myth. We will read the novel in translation, alongside its adaptations into opera, film, and Broadway musical.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

The Modernist Novel: Mann, Woolf, and Joyce
AS.300.319 (01)

In this course, we will survey the major works of three of the greatest, most relentless innovators of the twentieth century – Thomas Mann, 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
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 11/19
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Narrative Analysis
AS.300.341 (01)

Is storytelling part of human nature? Do myths and legends have a universal structure? What is the relationship between factual and fictional narratives? What role do narratives play in the construction of personal identities? As a bridge between experience and language, narrative informs the way we understand history, gender, politics, emotion, cognition and much more. This course will provide a systematic understanding of how narratives are composed, how they are experienced, and eventually, how they evolve. The first part of the course focuses on ancient and modern approaches to the formal study of narrative elements such as genre, plot, character, narrator and reader. The second part of the course focuses on critical approaches to narrative, such as gender and narrative, social and political critique of narrative, postmodern perspectives on the representation of reality, forms of narrative in other arts and media, and conclude with the evolving concept of narrative in the digital age. Readings include works by Aristotle, Plato, Barthes, Genette, Todorov, Bakhtin, Butler, Derrida and others. Theoretical/analytical texts will be combined with practical exercises on literary and visual excerpts.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Art since 1945
AS.010.209 (01)

Critical survey of developments in the visual arts primarily in Europe and the United States from 1945 to the present, 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.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/19
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Literature of the Great Recession
AS.215.417 (01)

The Great Recession—sometimes called the financial crisis or the economic crisis of 2008—brought financial markets to a halt and created significant political turmoil across the North Atlantic. But its impact on culture, and literature especially, has often been ignored. This seminar will travel across Europe, from Dublin to Madrid, from London to Reykjavík in order to examine how literature has registered this most recent economic crisis. We will focus on how crisis is narrated and the ways in which literary works have managed to provide a voice for marginalized social, economic, and political demands.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 5/16
  • PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, INST-ECON

Philosophical Conceptions of the Infinite
AS.300.315 (01)

What is the infinite? Can we comprehend it? Can we experience it? In this course we will explore various ways in which philosophers in the western tradition have answered questions such as these. In the first half of the semester, we will examine theoretical treatments of the infinite that inform how we understand the fabric of our world, from the ordinary objects around us to more sublime concepts of God, space, time, and mathematics. In the second half, we will turn to arguments in aesthetics and ethics that reveal an interplay between infinity and finitude occurring before our very eyes. Philosophers we will cover include Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Russell, Levinas, and Arendt. Throughout, we will ask such fundamental questions as, what is the starting point of philosophy? what is its methodology? what can it achieve in terms of knowledge? and in terms of practice?

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-PT

Modernities and Comparison
AS.300.425 (01)

Comparative survey of literary modernities in Europe and East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea). We will study works of modern literature as well as critical and philosophical texts from these civilizations in each other’s light. We will, as a working hypothesis, begin our examination by bracketing off the conventional center-periphery (Europe-Asia) scheme and considering literary modernities to be singular and contested, yet mutually resonating attempts at reconstruction, restoration, and revolution vis-à-vis the deconstructive forces of capitalist modernity. Ultimately, we will interrogate how we should understand literary modernities in the plural, as they emerged in distant civilizations. Topics of discussion include decadence, repetition, the trope of the human, ideology, the sublime, ritual, and translation. Readings in Hegel, Nietzsche, Mann, Benjamin, Baudelaire, Proust, Breton, Sōseki, Kobayashi, Wang Guowei, Lu Xun, and Yi Kwangsu. All readings are in English.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 16/18
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Russian Avant-Garde Cinema
AS.300.366 (01)

Russian cinema was born out of the intense artistic experimentation of the fin-de-siècle avant-garde and developed in a climate of dramatic political and cultural change in the twenties and thirties. While subject to draconian censorship in the Soviet period, it nonetheless engaged in active dialogue with the film industries of Western Europe and America and had a lasting impact on world cinema. This course examines the extraordinary flourishing of avant-garde cinema in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s including films by Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin, and Dovzhenko, their theoretical writings, and their far-reaching influence on film and film theory. All readings in English, films subtitled in English.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 10/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

Literature of the Everyday
AS.300.429 (01)

The ordinary, the common, the everyday: why does literary realism consider the experiences of the average individual to be worthy of serious contemplation? In this course, we will read closely a set of novels by Flaubert, Mann, Dickens, Eliot, Zola, Tolstoy, and Woolf from the period between 1850 and 1950 in which the development of realism reaches it climax. These novels transform the conventions for the representation of lives of lower and middle class subjects, revealing such lives as capable of prompting reflection upon deep and serious questions of human existence.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 11/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Photoshop/Digital Darkroom
AS.371.151 (01)

Photoshop is not only the digital darkroom for processing images created with digital cameras; it is also a creative application for making original artwork. In this course, students use Photoshop software as a tool to produce images from a fine art perspective, working on projects that demand creative thinking while gaining technical expertise. Students will make archival prints, have regular critiques, and attend lectures on the history of the manipulated image and its place in culture. We will look at art movements which inspire digital artists, including 19th-century collage, dada, surrealism, and the zeitgeist of Hollywood films. Students must have a digital SLR camera. Prior knowledge of Photoshop is not required. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS; no need to email.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Freshman Seminar: Great Books at Hopkins
AS.360.133 (02)

Freshman Seminar: Students attend lectures by an interdepartmental group of Hopkins faculty and meet for discussion in smaller seminar groups; each of these seminars is led by one of the course faculty. In lectures, panels, multimedia presentations, and curatorial sessions among the University's rare book holdings, we will explore some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical traditions in Europe and the Americas. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of this course; authors for Fall 2018 include Homer, Boethius, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Descartes, Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, Mozart, Douglass, and Woolf.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Visual Reality
AS.371.149 (01)

In art, "Realism" is a simulation of visual reality. But art can also simulate alternative realities, those realities or truths which exist only in daydreams or nightmares. In this class, we will learn to explore and create representations of these additional moments of existence. This will require thinking creatively or "outside the box," a useful skill in any field. Using a variety of media, students are asked to solve problems to which there is no one correct answer.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Digital Photography
AS.371.152 (01)

Students learn to use their digital cameras through a variety of documentary, landscape and portrait projects, which will help them develop technical and creative skills. Critiques and slide lectures of historic photographs, which range from postmortem daguerreotypes to postmodern digital imagery, help students develop a personal vision. Students are provided digital SLR cameras and gain proficiency with one-on-one instruction in the field. Basics for print adjustment and output will be covered. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS; no need to email.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Gender and Sexuality Beyond the Global West: Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Art in North Africa and the Middle East
AS.363.329 (01)

This course aims to explore how gender and sexuality is situated in contemporary artistic practices in the geographical Middle East, through concepts of religion, war, revolution, resistance, nation-state, post-colonialism, and neoliberalism, especially as written and observed first-hand by artists, curators and scholars from the Middle East and North Africa region and their diasporas. Every week, under an overarching topic, notions of gender and sexuality will be questioned through works of selected artists across the region, as well as texts that provide the historical, theoretical, sociological and political background.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Canceled
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): ISLM-ISLMST

Freshman Seminar:Great Books at Hopkins
AS.360.133 (04)

Freshman Seminar: Students attend lectures by an interdepartmental group of Hopkins faculty and meet for discussion in smaller seminar groups; each of these seminars is led by one of the course faculty. In lectures, panels, multimedia presentations, and curatorial sessions among the University's rare book holdings, we will explore some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical traditions in Europe and the Americas. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of this course; authors for Fall 2018 include Homer, Boethius, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Descartes, Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, Mozart, Douglass, and Woolf.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Freshman Seminar: Great Books at Hopkins
AS.360.133 (03)

Freshman Seminar: Students attend lectures by an interdepartmental group of Hopkins faculty and meet for discussion in smaller seminar groups; each of these seminars is led by one of the course faculty. In lectures, panels, multimedia presentations, and curatorial sessions among the University's rare book holdings, we will explore some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical traditions in Europe and the Americas. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of this course; authors for Fall 2018 include Homer, Boethius, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Descartes, Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, Mozart, Douglass, and Woolf.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Freshman Seminar: Great Books at Hopkins
AS.360.133 (01)

Freshman Seminar: Students attend lectures by an interdepartmental group of Hopkins faculty and meet for discussion in smaller seminar groups; each of these seminars is led by one of the course faculty. In lectures, panels, multimedia presentations, and curatorial sessions among the University's rare book holdings, we will explore some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical traditions in Europe and the Americas. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of this course; authors for Fall 2018 include Homer, Boethius, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Descartes, Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, Mozart, Douglass, and Woolf.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Documentary Photography
AS.371.303 (02)

In this course, we will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photojournalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. Field trips offer opportunities to work in the field. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Students will be loaned a digital SLR for the semester.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Documentary Photography
AS.371.303 (01)

In this course, we will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photojournalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. Field trips offer opportunities to work in the field. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Students will be loaned a digital SLR for the semester.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Black and White: Digital Darkroom
AS.371.162 (02)

In this digital course, students explore the black-and-white aesthetic. They develop camera skills on numerous field trips and local walks. Students meet frequently for critiques and discussions based on historic and contemporary imagery. Techniques such as high dynamic range, and infrared are covered. Emphasis is on composition, and developing a photographic style with shooting and post processing. Students are encouraged to make work that is meaningful to them and which communicates its intent to their audience. Attendance at first class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 6/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

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

In this digital course, students explore the black-and-white aesthetic. They develop camera skills on numerous field trips and local walks. Students meet frequently for critiques and discussions based on historic and contemporary imagery. Techniques such as high dynamic range, and infrared are covered. Emphasis is on composition, and developing a photographic style with shooting and post processing. Students are encouraged to make work that is meaningful to them and which communicates its intent to their audience. Attendance at first class is mandatory.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.213.374 (01)Existentialism in Literature and PhilosophyTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMGosetti, Jennifer AnnaHodson 216GRLL-ENGL
AS.211.333 (01)The Holocaust in Film and LiteratureW 1:30PM - 4:00PMSpinner, Samuel JacobGilman 217INST-GLOBAL
AS.010.422 (01)Challenge to Painting: Collage, Montage, AssemblageT 3:00PM - 5:30PMWarnock, MollyGilman 177HART-MODERN
AS.300.237 (01)Freshman Seminar: Tolstoy's War and PeaceT 1:30PM - 4:00PMEakin Moss, AnneMattin Center 161INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.319 (01)The Modernist Novel: Mann, Woolf, and JoyceWF 12:00PM - 1:15PMOng, Yi-PingGilman 186
AS.300.341 (01)Introduction to Narrative AnalysisTTh 2:00PM - 3:15PMSirin, Hale 
AS.010.209 (01)Art since 1945TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMWarnock, MollyGilman 119HART-MODERN
AS.215.417 (01)Literature of the Great RecessionM 3:00PM - 5:30PMSeguin, Becquer DBloomberg 176GRLL-ENGL, INST-ECON
AS.300.315 (01)Philosophical Conceptions of the InfiniteM 1:30PM - 4:00PMHost, Alexander StoltzfusGilman 208INST-PT
AS.300.425 (01)Modernities and ComparisonT 1:30PM - 4:00PMStaffBloomberg 272
AS.300.366 (01)Russian Avant-Garde CinemaTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMEakin Moss, AnneGilman 208INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.429 (01)Literature of the EverydayF 1:30PM - 4:00PMOng, Yi-PingGilman 186
AS.371.151 (01)Photoshop/Digital DarkroomM 10:00AM - 12:50PMEhrenfeld, HowardMattin Center 204
AS.360.133 (02)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMEnder, EvelyneLevering Arellano
AS.371.149 (01)Visual RealityT 2:00PM - 5:00PMBakker, D.S.Mattin Center 201
AS.371.152 (01)Introduction to Digital PhotographyT 10:00AM - 12:50PMEhrenfeld, HowardMattin Center 204
AS.363.329 (01)Gender and Sexuality Beyond the Global West: Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Art in North Africa and the Middle EastW 2:00PM - 4:30PMInce, Ezgi ISLM-ISLMST
AS.360.133 (04)Freshman Seminar:Great Books at HopkinsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMProtano Biggs, LauraLevering Arellano
AS.360.133 (03)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMNichols, StephenLevering Arellano
AS.360.133 (01)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMPatton, ElizabethLevering Arellano
AS.371.303 (02)Documentary PhotographyF 2:00PM - 4:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.371.303 (01)Documentary PhotographyF 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.371.162 (02)Black and White: Digital DarkroomW 2:00PM - 4:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204
AS.371.162 (01)Black and White: Digital DarkroomW 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis AMattin Center 204