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.

FYS: Legal Fictions - Law and Humanities
AS.001.106 (01)

A legal fiction is a fact assumed or created by courts to help reach a decision. In this First-Year Seminar, we study how legal fictions and fictions about law work in order to examine the possibilities and limits of fiction’s (legal) power. Drawing from legal and literary thought, as well as plays, short stories, cases, and legal commentary, we critically explore the capacity of words to reveal (or conjure) some fundamental features of our shared worlds and discuss their impact in contemporary debates about justice. The course is designed with first-year students in mind and requires no prior knowledge of law.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Culbert, Jennifer, Siraganian, Lisa Michele
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

FYS: Thinking and Writing Across Cultures - East Asia and the West
AS.001.107 (01)

In this First-Year Seminar, we will explore what it means to think and write across multiple cultures in the contemporary world. What do we gain and/or lose when we think and write crossing cultural boundaries? How do knowledge and experience of two or more cultures help us think and act critically, creatively, and ethically? What does plurality of cultures mean to universal discourses such as science and technology? How can cultural differences help or hamper our efforts to tackle global problems like climate change? These are some of the guiding questions that we will investigate together in this course by examining novels, essays, autobiographies, travelogues, philosophical writings, and films that engage with multiplicity of cultures between East Asia -- especially China, Japan, and Korea – and the West as well as within East Asia.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/12
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

FYS: Heart Matters
AS.001.108 (01)

To the human imagination, the heart is more than a muscle and thumping pump keeping us alive. From the Renaissance to the present, writers have helped us make sense of our bodies, in health and in illness or pain. In this First-Year Seminar, our aim will be to trace the historical, cultural, and subjective meanings our minds have given to this "sublime engine." Our materials will involve a constellation of attentive readings of a rich literature involving modern fiction, poems, as well as recent scientific prose. The last part of this seminar involves a collaborative project focused on The Heart, the award-winning novel by Maylis de Kerangal.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
  • Instructor: Ender, Evelyne
  • Room: Gilman 77  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

FYS: Literature of the Everyday: The Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel
AS.001.116 (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, Zola, and Tolstoy from the period in which the development of realism reaches its 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: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
  • Room: Gilman 55  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 12/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Modern Art and Mass Culture
AS.010.326 (01)

What happens to art after the widespread production and circulation of readymade commodities in the twentieth century? How does it contend with the technological developments—print media, photography, film—accompanying industrial production and urbanization? Focusing on procedural innovations central to the history of modern art—collage, nominalism, montage, conceptualism, and performance—and debates in art history about art’s “public,” we will ask how artists responded to, critiqued, and incorporated features of the industrial world in their practice. In particular, we will be interested in asking what kind of shared culture art attempted to forge against the homogenizing forces of industrial capitalism. Central to our inquiry is the repeated concern artists, critics, and theorists raise about the distinction between art and life, and about the importance to both of critical historical thinking. While introducing students to the history of modern art, this course also focuses on special contemporary projects by artists of color, theorized together using digital materials. Texts include Marx, Adorno, Benjamin, Federici, and Mulvey.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Ballakrishnen, Meghaa
  • Room: Gilman 119  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/12
  • 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 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios
  • Room: Gilman 381  
  • Status: Reserved Open
  • Seats Available: 2/15
  • 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: Ames 234  
  • Status: Reserved Open
  • Seats Available: 2/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Renaissance Witches and Demonology
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 medicine, theology, literature, folklore, music, and the visual arts, including cinema.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
  • Instructor: Stephens, Walter E
  • Room:    
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 24/50
  • PosTag(s): n/a

High School on Television
AS.300.104 (01)

Education has always played an important role in popular culture, but High School Musical's premiere on Disney Channel in 2006 ushered in a new era of TV set in schools. In this course, we'll ask how recent depictions of high school on television captured the collective imagination and what they might be able to teach us about the purpose of school in society. Students will get the most out of the course if they are eager to learn about the philosophy of education; willing to critically reflect on their own experiences of schooling both inside and outside the classroom; and excited about watching TV shows such as Love, Victor; Euphoria; 13 Reasons Why; All American; Sex Education; Riverdale; Derry Girls; Elite; Merlí; Glee; and Friday Night Lights.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: McCreary, Michael D
  • Room: Bloomberg 176  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 18/18
  • 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 3:00PM - 4:15PM
  • Instructor: Ince, Ezgi
  • Room: Gilman 313  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Lu Xun And His Times: China’s Long 20th Century And Beyond
AS.300.322 (01)

The “founding father of modern Chinese literature,” Lu Xun (1881-1936) saw himself as a contemporary of writers like Gogol, Ibsen, and Nietzsche in creating his seminal short stories and essays, and likewise, he has been seen by numerous Chinese, Sinophone, and East Asian writers as their contemporary since his lifetime until today. In this course, we will survey Lu Xun's canonical works and their legacies through a comparative approach. What echoes do Lu Xun's works have with the European and Russian texts he engaged with? Why did his works manage to mark a “new origin” of Chinese literature? How were his works repeated, adapted, and appropriated by Chinese writers from the Republican period through the Maoist era to the post-socialist present, even during the Covid-19 pandemic? How do we assess his cross-cultural reception? Are his times obsolete now that China is on the rise? Or, have his times come yet? Through our comparative survey, Lu Xun's works and their afterlives will offer us a window onto China's long twentieth century and beyond in a transnational context. All materials are provided in English translation.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: WF 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

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

Literary and philosophical imaginations of moral community in the post-WWII period. 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, and Beauvoir 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 mean 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
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
  • Room: Gilman 377  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 8/20
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Narrative Imagination in Philosophy and Literature
AS.300.345 (01)

We are constantly immersed in narratives or, as Roland Barthes said, narrative "is simply there like life itself. . . international, transhistorical, transcultural." As a bridge between experience and language, narrative informs the way we understand history, gender, politics, emotion, cognition and much more. Through reading a series of philosophical and literary texts, 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 this course will focus on building a foundation in the formal study of narrative, focusing on elements such as genre, plot, character, narrator and reader. We will start with a brief consideration of ancient approaches to literary narrative in Aristotle's Poetics and Plato's Republic. From there, we will engage with a wide range of readings in narrative theory. The second part of the course will focus on critical approaches to narrative, such as gender and narrative, social and political critique of narrative, narratives in the age of artificial intelligence, and conclude with the evolving concept of narrative in the Anthropocene.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Sirin, Hale
  • Room: Maryland 114  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 11/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Modern Drama
AS.300.348 (01)

This course offers a survey of modern drama, from the mid nineteenth century to the present. We will sample a broad range of dramatic styles and movements in order to uncover the variety of ways theatre has made sense of the human experience over the past two hundred years.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
  • Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Cinema and Philosophy
AS.300.399 (01)

What do films and philosophy have in common? Do films express, with their own means, philosophical problems that are relevant to our experience of ourselves and the world we live in? This term we will study such issues with a particular focus on questions of justice, truth, revenge, forgiveness, hope, hate, and fear.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Marrati, Paola
  • Room: Gilman 75  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/25
  • PosTag(s): n/a

What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, Trees
AS.300.402 (01)

Knowing who or what counts as a person seems straightforward, until we consider the many kinds of creatures, objects, and artificial beings that have been granted—or demanded or denied—that status. This course explores recent debates on being a person in culture, law, and philosophy. Questions examined will include: Should trees have standing? Can corporations have religious beliefs? Could a robot sign a contract? Materials examined will be wide-ranging, including essays, philosophy, novels, science fiction, television, film. No special background is required.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa Michele
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/20
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Concepts and Problems of Modern Philosophy, Aesthtics, and Critical Theory
AS.300.421 (01)

This seminar is addressed to first and second year graduate students as well as to advanced undergraduates. It aims at providing a survey of some fundamental concepts and problems that shape modern and contemporary debates in philosophy, literary studies, and the humanities at large. This term we will study in particular notions of existence, language, truth, power, otherness, race, gender, and reality.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Marrati, Paola
  • Room: Gilman 208  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 24/25
  • PosTag(s): n/a

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

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 2020 include Homer, Plato, Dante, John Donne, George Herbert, Christina Rosetti, Mary Shelley, Friederick Nietzsche, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Frederick Douglass.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
  • Instructor: Patton, Elizabeth
  • Room: Mergenthaler 111  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

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

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 2020 include Homer, Plato, Dante, John Donne, George Herbert, Christina Rosetti, Mary Shelley, Friederick Nietzsche, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Frederick Douglass.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
  • Instructor: Bett, Richard, Patton, Elizabeth
  • Room: Mergenthaler 111  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • PosTag(s): n/a

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

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 2020 include Homer, Plato, Dante, John Donne, George Herbert, Christina Rosetti, Mary Shelley, Friederick Nietzsche, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Frederick Douglass.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
  • Instructor: Di Bianco, Laura, Patton, Elizabeth
  • Room: Mergenthaler 111  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 15/15
  • 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.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: Th 10:00AM - 12:50PM
  • Instructor: Berger, Phyllis A
  • Room: The Centre 318  
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Digital Photography
AS.371.152 (02)

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.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: Th 2:00PM - 4:50PM
  • Instructor: Berger, Phyllis A
  • Room: The Centre 318  
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/12
  • 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. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Digital SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance in first class is mandatory. Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: F 2:00PM - 4:50PM
  • Instructor: Berger, Phyllis A
  • Room: The Centre 318  
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/12
  • 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 Waverly, Greenmount Avenue, 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 SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:30PM
  • Instructor: Mckone, Jonna
  • Room: The Centre 318  
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 0/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.001.106 (01)FYS: Legal Fictions - Law and HumanitiesTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMCulbert, Jennifer, Siraganian, Lisa MicheleGilman 208
 
AS.001.107 (01)FYS: Thinking and Writing Across Cultures - East Asia and the WestF 1:30PM - 4:00PMHashimoto, SatoruGilman 208
 		INST-GLOBAL
AS.001.108 (01)FYS: Heart MattersMW 3:00PM - 4:15PMEnder, EvelyneGilman 77
 
AS.001.116 (01)FYS: Literature of the Everyday: The Nineteenth-Century Realist NovelM 1:30PM - 4:00PMOng, Yi-PingGilman 55
 
AS.010.326 (01)Modern Art and Mass CultureMW 1:30PM - 2:45PMBallakrishnen, MeghaaGilman 119
 		HART-MODERN
AS.040.121 (01)Ancient Greek Mythology: Art, Narratives, and Modern MythmakingTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMYatromanolakis, DimitriosGilman 381
 
AS.040.126 (01)Religion, Music and Society in Ancient GreeceTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMYatromanolakis, DimitriosAmes 234
 
AS.211.477 (01)Renaissance Witches and DemonologyTTh 3:00PM - 4:15PMStephens, Walter E 
 
AS.300.104 (01)High School on TelevisionTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMMcCreary, Michael DBloomberg 176
 
AS.300.318 (01)Creating the Jazz ImageTTh 3:00PM - 4:15PMInce, EzgiGilman 313
 
AS.300.322 (01)Lu Xun And His Times: China’s Long 20th Century And BeyondWF 12:00PM - 1:15PMHashimoto, SatoruGilman 208
 		INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.336 (01)Forms of Moral Community: The Contemporary World NovelMW 12:00PM - 1:15PMOng, Yi-PingGilman 377
 
AS.300.345 (01)Narrative Imagination in Philosophy and LiteratureW 1:30PM - 4:00PMSirin, HaleMaryland 114
 
AS.300.348 (01)Modern DramaTTh 9:00AM - 10:15AMLisi, LeonardoGilman 208
 
AS.300.399 (01)Cinema and PhilosophyTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMMarrati, PaolaGilman 75
 
AS.300.402 (01)What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, TreesTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMSiraganian, Lisa MicheleGilman 208
 
AS.300.421 (01)Introduction to Concepts and Problems of Modern Philosophy, Aesthtics, and Critical TheoryW 1:30PM - 4:00PMMarrati, PaolaGilman 208
 
AS.360.133 (01)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMPatton, ElizabethMergenthaler 111
 
AS.360.133 (02)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMBett, Richard, Patton, ElizabethMergenthaler 111
 
AS.360.133 (03)Freshman Seminar: Great Books at HopkinsTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMDi Bianco, Laura, Patton, ElizabethMergenthaler 111
 
AS.371.152 (01)Introduction to Digital PhotographyTh 10:00AM - 12:50PMBerger, Phyllis AThe Centre 318
 
AS.371.152 (02)Introduction to Digital PhotographyTh 2:00PM - 4:50PMBerger, Phyllis AThe Centre 318
 
AS.371.162 (02)Black and White: Digital DarkroomF 2:00PM - 4:50PMBerger, Phyllis AThe Centre 318
 
AS.371.303 (01)Documentary PhotographyM 1:30PM - 4:30PMMckone, JonnaThe Centre 318