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

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

This community-engaged course is co-created by a scholar and curator with expertise in religion, art, and material culture, and taught in partnership with the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), and centers how museums engage with the sacred. Recognizing that museums have traditionally been under-equipped to respond to the social concerns that animate their local communities, the BMA is rethinking how a twenty-first century civic museum engages the city in which it is located. Understanding the museum as a public space in which contemporary civic and social issues can be engaged, we will explore such questions as: how can a museum represent devotional objects while honoring a diversity of religious and spiritual perspectives and avoiding homogenous narratives about belief? How can a museum create relationships with religious communities to understand and interpret the objects in its collection, and navigate differences in faith-based communities with ethical care? How can a museum engage local communities in the process of writing labels for objects and in other acts of interpretation in a way that is not extractive and is genuinely value-aligned? In short, how can a museum truly become public? As a community-engaged course, students will build practically on their learning about museums, religion and public pedagogy to create and facilitate community listening circles at the BMA. The course will include visits to the BMA and other sites, guest visits on focused topics from museum professionals in other institutions, and training in listening and facilitation.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Ziad, Homayra
• Room: 3003 N. Charles OMA Lounge
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/20
• PosTag(s): CSC-CE, ISLM-ISLMST, INST-GLOBAL

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

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

American museums today face ongoing practical, political and ethical challenges, including economic difficulties, technology and globalization, ongoing debates over the ownership and interpretation of culture and pressure to demonstrate their social value. This course considers how museums are answering these challenges and projects into the future. NOTE: Class usually meets 1:30- 4:00 PM, except for days with field trips (when class will meet 1:30- 5:00 PM instead).

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Forloney, Robert
• Room: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/18
• PosTag(s): PMUS-INTRO, ARCH-ARCH

An introduction to the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the conservation profession: who gets to be a conservator, where we work and how; what are its origins and how it has evolved.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jarvis, Jennifer
• Room: BLC 5015
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/10
• PosTag(s): PMUS-INTRO, ARCH-ARCH, PMUS-PRAC

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

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

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

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

Working in collaboration with staff from the Baltimore Museum of Art, students assess the opportunities and challenges of the European collections; research select objects; contribute to the department's collections development plan; and conceptualize new, more global and more inclusive approaches to the displays.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P; Yeager-Crasselt, Lara
• Room: Bloomberg 274
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, ARCH-RELATE

This course investigates the confluence of archaeology as a discipline, collecting of cultural heritage, and their ongoing roles in the socio-politics of the Western world and Middle East. It focuses primarily on the Middle East, first tracing a narrative history of archaeology in the region during the 19th and early 20th centuries, with its explorers, diplomats, missionaries and gentlemen-scholars. It then examines the relationship of archaeology to the creation of the encyclopedic museum and collecting practices more generally, considering how these activities profoundly shaped the modern world, including the antiquities market and looting. A central theme is the production of knowledge through these activities and how this contributes to aspects of power and (self-)representation.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Feldman, Marian
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

This class is an occasion for speculative anthropology, a chance to reimagine this place (an American city on the Jones Falls river) in a future beyond the bustle of our fossil-fueled present. What culture might people of that distant time produce, and how might they make creative use of the many things we leave behind? In this class, we will work together as anthropologists and artists of another time, crafting an inventive and collaborative story about a culture to come, and the material artifacts of a very different collective life. The class will be co-taught by anthropologist Anand Pandian and visual artist Jordan Tierney. We will nurture our imaginations through experiential practices of observing nature, collecting materials, and assembling artifacts. What we build will serve as the core of a spring 2025 local museum exhibition we will plan together.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Pandian, anand
• Room: Mergenthaler 426
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/18
• PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE

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

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room: Gilman 400
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, ARCH-ARCH, PMUS-INTRO, MSCH-HUM

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

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE

Traditionally defined as placeholders of memory, monuments and memorials supposedly help us remember and reflect. But who, what and how do they remember? Who decides how and where they are built? This course poses these and other questions about the politics of public commemoration amid the rich monumental landscape of the nation’s capital. Site visits allow students to experience monuments as living, built ideas and ideals, and to participate in the conversation among memorials. For example, how does the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—which remains the most original and poignant built expression of remembrance—dialogue with the nearby Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial? And how is Lincoln’s legacy recorded differently in the contested Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park? Onsite engagement with DC monuments will be paired with discussing scholarly works on the theory and history of monuments and reflecting on talks by members of the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission, the National Park Service, and the American Battle Monuments Commission. This integrative learning approach invites students to grapple with the complex and ever-evolving process of making and maintaining public memory while placing recent controversies in a broader historical perspective.

• Days/Times: W 10:00AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Jewiss, Virginia C
• Room: 555 Penn 
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE

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

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Finkelstein, Lori
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR, ARCH-RELATE

Examines the history of African art in the Euro-American world, focusing on the ways that Western institutions have used African artworks to construct narratives about Africa and its billion residents.

• Days/Times: M 6:00PM - 8:30PM
• Instructor: Tervala, Kevin
• Room: Gilman 10
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

We live our lives through story. The narratives we circulate—songs, Instagram posts, podcasts, coming out stories—shape the world around us just as they shape our own lives. This course explores the politics of storytelling with a focus on Washington DC-based oral history initiatives, podcasts, and museum exhibitions. Students will examine the power of narrative to uphold and contest power structures by engaging with scholarship produced by ethnographers, historians, queer theorists, critical race theorists, and performance studies scholars. The class will venture into Washington DC to talk with museum curators about the contested politics of producing historical narratives, local activists about the utility of movement narratives, and oral historians about the vital counternarratives they surface in collaboration with local Black, LGBTQ, and indigenous communities. Combining theory and practice, students will critically examine and creatively engage with the role of storytelling in our everyday lives.

• Days/Times: W 2:30PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Plaster, Joseph
• Room: 555 Penn 
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Students lead a project of their own design under the instructor’s close mentorship and supervision. Students may build on an existing project or develop a new project. Students consider and evaluate concepts and methods of publicly engaged research and their applicability to their own projects. Students debate the ethics of varied methods by reading and analyzing case studies. Students reflect on the ethical stakes of their own topic, process, and desired outcomes. Students discuss and train in strategies of research communication and their ethics by engaging with professionals such as museum interpreters, podcasters, exhibit designers, documentary filmmakers, and magazine editors. Students share works in progress at a salon style gathering midway through the semester and present their concluding findings at a public celebration at the end of the semester.

• Days/Times: T 2:30PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room: 555 Penn 
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE