This course provides a fresh look at one of the most critical periods in the history of science – the so-called ‘Scientific Revolution’, spanning a period from approximately 1550 to 1750 – through the lens of colonial studies. It will address classic topics within the history and philosophy of science, such as the rise of observational epistemologies and the globalization of scientific knowledge. By connecting these philosophical concepts to the colonial contexts in which they arose, it will use tools from social history, economic history, and art history. Ultimately, it seeks not only to enrich students’ perspectives on the history of science, but also to inspire them to think about the connections between science and society across time, including in our own moment.

• Days/Times: MWF 9:00AM - 11:30AM
• Instructor: Hinckley, Marlis A
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Is the mind identical to the brain? Is the mind (or brain) a computer? Could a computer reason, have emotions, or be morally responsible? This course examines such questions philosophically and historically. Topics include: the history of AI research from 1940s to present; debates in cognitive science related to AI (computationalism, connectionism, and 4E cognition); and AI ethics.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:00PM - 4:45PM
• Instructor: Honenberger, Phillip
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/19
• PosTag(s): COGS-PHLMND, COGS-COMPCG

Is the mind identical to the brain? Is the mind (or brain) a computer? Could a computer reason, have emotions, or be morally responsible? This course examines such questions philosophically and historically. Topics include: the history of AI research from 1940s to present; debates in cognitive science related to AI (computationalism, connectionism, and 4E cognition); and AI ethics.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 11:30AM
• Instructor: Honenberger, Phillip
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/19
• PosTag(s): COGS-PHLMND, COGS-COMPCG

This course is a broad introduction to the fields of medical and mental health interpreting. Modules will include: (1) Three-way communication: managing role expectations and interpersonal dynamics; (2) Basic interpreting skills and techniques in a healthcare setting; (3) Ethical principles, dilemmas, and confidentiality; (4) Elements of medical interpreting; (5) Elements of mental health interpreting; (6) Trauma-informed interpreting: serving the refugee population. The course is taught in English, and has no foreign language pre-requisites.

• Days/Times: M 10:00AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Zannirato, Alessandro
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Hospitals: Virtually all of us were born in one, most of us will eventually die in one, and in between all of us will spend at least some time in one. Lots of you likely aspire to spend your careers in one. Along the way we, or some third-party payer, will spend a considerable amount of our health care benefits there. Our focus will be on the history of the hospital from its origins in early modern Europe and the Islamic world, through the early modern period, to the rise of the modern urban mega hospital. The Johns Hopkins Hospital has been ranked as one of the nation’s best by US News and World Report since its annual survey began, and spent nineteen straight years at number one. So we will devote some time to its history, and the history of its affiliated programs—The School of Medicine, The Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Nursing. For your major project, you will serve as advisors to the university’s Planning and Architecture committee. Drawing on your extensive knowledge of the history hospitals and medicine, you will re-envision the medical campus of the 21st century

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This First-Year Seminar explores the intersection between medicine and film, looking at how medicine, medical providers, and narratives of illness and health are depicted in cinematic works. Some of the questions that the seminar pursues are: What are some of the medical issues that filmmakers focus on? How did the cinematic portrayal of medicine change over time? What role do these films play in shaping public perceptions of medicine, medical providers, and medical institutions? By watching a number of films throughout the semester and reading some accompanying texts, students will develop deeper knowledge both of the history of medicine in cinema and the tools that cinema offers to the telling medical stories.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This First-Year Seminar is designed to introduce you to the human side of medicine by exploring ways in which patients and medical practitioners describe their personal experience. It has been structured to allow you to engage that material by reading it, viewing it in film, discussing it, writing about it and meeting with a practicing physician. Its a course not only about content, but also about process, the process of thoughtfully and openly engaging work about the lives of others. It is a seminar style course that emphasizes a friendly, protected setting in which to explore these issues. The course is facilitated by an experienced member of the Hopkins Medical Faculty, and has been designed to open a window through which you can begin to study the human concerns of patients and practitioners. The course is most likely to appeal to premedical and pre-health related students who are interested in exploring the human side of medicine, but also to students interested in biography, memoir and life-writing. At the end of this course, you will have gained an appreciation for some of the ways in which people express themselves about the illness experience or about working with the sick. You will have had a chance to develop longer, more personal relationship to such accounts than you are likely to have in clinical encounters in medical schools, training programs or even in clinical rotations. It takes time to listen. The course draws a small sample from a very wide range of such accounts that number in the thousands, so there is no attempt to generalize; rather, every effort is made to immerse ourselves into one account at a time and to understand one person’s experience at a time. Through this kind of immersion, you will develop a sense of how illness can affect a life, and the way in which practitioners become involved to find themselves in their own work.

• Days/Times: Th 9:00AM - 11:30AM
• Instructor: Mostwin, Jacek Lech
• Room: Jenkins 102
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course combines historical and ethnographic investigations of the wastefulness of modern medicine in ecological, economic, and bodily terms. Why, in the past half-century, has the production of medical waste skyrocketed? Who bears the environmental costs of the incineration of disposable medical technologies? What new sustainable solutions might be retrieved from past practices? At the intersection of medicine, science, and humanities, this course explores the human and planetary costs of our wasteful healthcare systems, and what can be done to envision a more sustainable future. Readings will be centered in historical and ethnographic investigation but will stretch across other humanities and social science disciplines, in conjunction with primary source readings from medical and public health journals, lawsuits and Congressional hearings, and new approaches to materials design for sustainable healthcare. Experiential partnerships with local, regional, and international advocacy groups will be important for this course as well, including the Planetary Health Alliance based in the Bloomberg Center in Washington DC, the Sustainability Leadership Council of Johns Hopkins University, and local environmental justice advocacy surrounding the Curtis Bay Energy medical incinerator, which was recently the subject of the largest environmental fine in Maryland history.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Greene, Jeremy
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Deirdre Cooper Owens argues that the experimental and pioneering work performed on enslaved Black women such as Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, by Dr. James Marion Sims, who is known as the father of gynecology, has been overshadowed in America’s understanding of American gynecology. In this writing intensive course, we will explore the role of Black enslaved women in the formation of the field of American gynecology. We will examine the writing about enslaved Black midwives, nurses, and Black women whose medical practices and bodies were deemed inferior and flawed yet provided foundational knowledge for white practitioners in the mid-1800s. Potential readings include Deirdre Cooper Owens’ Medical Bondage: Race Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology, Deborah Gray Whites’ Ar’nt I a Woman?, and Marie Jenkins Schwartz’s Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South. Throughout the term, students will conduct their own research and write to combine these conversations with contemporary discussions surrounding Black maternal health, Black midwives, birthing justice, and reproductive justice more broadly. This course will culminate with an academic conference where students will present their research to an audience of their peers. All undergraduates at sophomore level and above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Gilman 219
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/19
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/17
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This class explores histories of diseases, epidemics, and therapeutics in Asia. We will examine the rise of public health and the nation-state and the social and political factors that guided the outcomes of public health campaigns. Who was helped? Who was harmed? Why? How? To answer these questions, we will compare both top-down and bottom-up movements to understand questions of access and ethics in different communities—ethnic, racial, and religious—and the handling of different diseases that were acute, infectious, and chronic.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Li, Lan
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/19
• PosTag(s): n/a

How did the Western understanding of nature change between 1500 and 1720? We'll study the period through the works of astronomers and astrologers, naturalists and magi, natural philosophers and experimentalists, doctors and alchemists & many others.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

How did the Western understanding of nature change between 1500 and 1720? We'll study the period through the works of astronomers and astrologers, naturalists and magi, natural philosophers and experimentalists, doctors and alchemists & many others.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Will we end up oppressed by robot overlords? Will robots become our lovers and caretakers? Can we solve societal problems by building yet more sophisticated robotic machines? Will we find ourselves out of work as technologies take over tasks once considered the exclusive domain of humans? In this course we will question our hopes and fears by examining the global development of robotics, the entanglement of technology with politics and economics, and the impact—real or imagined—that robots are having on society. We will marvel at the ingenuity of French and Japanese automata of centuries past, scrutinize assumptions about labor, race and gender in automation and “labor saving” technologies, examine how the “intelligence” of AI is understood differently in Japan vs the US, ponder the “uncanny valley” phenomenon, and meet a quirky cast of robotic prototypes including Shakey, Eliza, Wabot I and II, Aibo, Kismet, Paro, Asimo, Actroids, Repelees, Sophia, Pepper, and Hyodol. By contrasting technological and social histories of actual robots with fictional representations in literature, animation, and film, we will seek answers to persistent questions about our inevitable robotic futures.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/18
• PosTag(s): CES-TI

How have wars shaped the natural world, and vice versa? How have affected communities responded to environmental harm? This course explores the environmental history of warfare from the 18th century through the 20th century. It interrogates the relationship between imperialism, nation-building, and environmental destruction, while asking how the natural world might or might not have influenced the outcome of these military conflicts. The course demonstrates how warfare drew attention to environmental vulnerabilities, both on a local and a global scale. Topics include resource extraction in Euro-American empires, WWII recycling campaigns, ecological violence in the Vietnam War, and nuclear weapons testing.

• Days/Times: MW 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/20
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR, CES-LE, CES-TI

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Disability Futures investigates the role of science and medicine in defining “normal” bodies and minds, and the processes of social change through which we can imagine and build an accessible future. Too often, technologists envision a future where disability has been “cured.” In reality, disability has always been an important part of human life; a world where disabled people thrive is a better world for everyone. This course surveys the field of disability studies with a focus on how disability has shaped, and been shaped by, science, medicine, and technology. We combine approaches from science and technology studies (STS), public health, and the medical humanities, covering topics such as art and speculative fiction, eugenics, technoableism, intersectionality, disability politics, structural determinants of health, and disability justice. Throughout the course, we center creative reimaginings by disabled people in science and the arts.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 2:45PM, Th 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Castro Sanchez, Franz; Lu, Stacy V; Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): CES-CC, MSCH-HUM

Disability Futures investigates the role of science and medicine in defining “normal” bodies and minds, and the processes of social change through which we can imagine and build an accessible future. Too often, technologists envision a future where disability has been “cured.” In reality, disability has always been an important part of human life; a world where disabled people thrive is a better world for everyone. This course surveys the field of disability studies with a focus on how disability has shaped, and been shaped by, science, medicine, and technology. We combine approaches from science and technology studies (STS), public health, and the medical humanities, covering topics such as art and speculative fiction, eugenics, technoableism, intersectionality, disability politics, structural determinants of health, and disability justice. Throughout the course, we center creative reimaginings by disabled people in science and the arts.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 2:45PM, Th 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Castro Sanchez, Franz; Lu, Stacy V; Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): CES-CC, MSCH-HUM

Disability Futures investigates the role of science and medicine in defining “normal” bodies and minds, and the processes of social change through which we can imagine and build an accessible future. Too often, technologists envision a future where disability has been “cured.” In reality, disability has always been an important part of human life; a world where disabled people thrive is a better world for everyone. This course surveys the field of disability studies with a focus on how disability has shaped, and been shaped by, science, medicine, and technology. We combine approaches from science and technology studies (STS), public health, and the medical humanities, covering topics such as art and speculative fiction, eugenics, technoableism, intersectionality, disability politics, structural determinants of health, and disability justice. Throughout the course, we center creative reimaginings by disabled people in science and the arts.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 2:45PM, Th 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Castro Sanchez, Franz; Lu, Stacy V; Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): CES-CC, MSCH-HUM

Disability Futures investigates the role of science and medicine in defining “normal” bodies and minds, and the processes of social change through which we can imagine and build an accessible future. Too often, technologists envision a future where disability has been “cured.” In reality, disability has always been an important part of human life; a world where disabled people thrive is a better world for everyone. This course surveys the field of disability studies with a focus on how disability has shaped, and been shaped by, science, medicine, and technology. We combine approaches from science and technology studies (STS), public health, and the medical humanities, covering topics such as art and speculative fiction, eugenics, technoableism, intersectionality, disability politics, structural determinants of health, and disability justice. Throughout the course, we center creative reimaginings by disabled people in science and the arts.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 2:45PM, Th 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Castro Sanchez, Franz; Lu, Stacy V; Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/16
• PosTag(s): CES-CC, MSCH-HUM

The knowledge and practices of science and medicine are not as self-evident as they may appear. When we observe, what do we see? What counts as evidence? How does evidence become fact? How do facts circulate and what are their effects? Who is included in and excluded from our common-sense notions of science, medicine, and technology? This course will introduce students to central theoretical concerns in Science and Technology Studies and the Medical Humanities, focusing on enduring problematics that animate scholars. In conjunction with examinations of theoretical bases, students will learn to evaluate the methodological tools used in different fields in the humanities to study the production and circulation of scientific knowledge and the structures of medical care and public health. This problem-centered approach will help students understand and apply key concepts and approaches in critical studies of science, technology, and medicine.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Vado, Karina A
• Room: Ames 320
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

“War is the only proper school for surgeons,” the Ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, is quoted to have said. This saying has been used to show how medicine and war have been thought for millennia to shape each other. Medicine has played a major role in situations of political conflict ever since human societies engaged in war and started elaborating “just war doctrines” that determine how belligerent parties should conduct war as an attempt to “civilize” war and mitigate its scourges. Through an investigation of case studies from the modern and contemporary world, this course will examine the role played by medicine in situations of political conflict, as well as the role played by war and humanitarian crises in the history of medical thought and practice. It will explore how medical knowledge and expertise have been deployed in situations of political violence or tumult and will ponder some of the ethical dilemmas faced by medical professionals in those contexts. Covering cases ranging from surgery in the American Civil War to the provision of medical care in the Syrian refugee crisis, some of the themes discussed will include biomedical ethics in armed conflict, torture, trauma, contagion, and medical innovation in conflict contexts.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan
• Room: Remsen Hall 347
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data are central to futuristic visions of fast, optimized medical treatment. This class examines technology’s promises: who benefits from, and who pays the price for, the automation of care? How does the clinical goal of improving health relate to industry priorities such as efficiency and revenue growth? By studying health AI applications in wellness, diagnosis, decision support, and administration, we will gain conceptual understanding of how algorithmic systems function, as well as their social, economic, and political implications. Students will investigate how automation can entrench inequality, both for patients and for healthcare workers. Authors such as Ruha Benjamin, Safiya Noble, and S. Scott Graham guide us beyond the “promises and perils” to a critical assessment of how technology interacts with systems of racial capitalism and biopolitics.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/18
• PosTag(s): CES-TI, MSCH-HUM

What are the ways in which bias informs and infiltrates healthcare? What is the relationship of bias with power and injustice, across medical training, patient care, and the production of medical knowledge? This course will grapple with these questions through interpretation and discussion of works of visual art, fiction, non-fiction, and popular media that center the voices of patients and healthcare providers. We will tie a direct link to healthcare systems and patient outcomes by applying a similar critical and interpretive lens to primary sources from scientific and medical literature. Combining these conversations with discussions of healthcare practices, we will explore a broad survey of themes, including cognitive biases and decision-making in patient care, epistemic injustice, bias in artificial intelligence, and bias in medical language and the electronic health record. Students will be introduced to identifying and navigating narratives of bias in healthcare, with an emphasis on applying critical thinking to the systems that propagate and dismantle bias in healthcare.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Balhara, Kamna
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The word for “medicine” in Malagasy, fanafody, can also mean “charm” or “magic.” This seminar uses that linguistic flexibility as a point of departure to explore practices for bodily healing and protection amid broader processes of social transformation, primarily in 20th- and 21st-century East Africa and the western Indian Ocean. How is the medical magical? How is the magical medical? How have separations between magic and medicine been erected, maintained, or questioned? From the role of faith healers to the region's experience of new "miracle drugs," class materials will integrate anthropology, history, and science and technology studies (STS) to examine various permutations of the magic/medicine duality over time. Topics will include facets of traditional medicine; encounters between indigenous and imported healing systems; medical pluralism; colonial and postcolonial conflicts; the rise of humanitarian global health; epidemic and pandemic politics; ritual and religious processes; and the roles of identity, inequality, and empire in healing and protection practices. Grounded in Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa, this course will also use magic/medicine to consider the region’s transcontinental and transoceanic connections.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Robbins, Gabrielle Lydia Marie
• Room: Bloomberg 176
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Can care exist in a space of punishment? Institutions of incarceration are inherently spaces of violence and social control and, in the U.S.’s current context of mass incarceration, racial oppression. Yet prisons, jails, and detention centers are required to provide individuals access to health care. How can we understand this convergence of care for the body and psyche with multiple forms of carceral violence? This course will examine modes of health and health care inside institutions of incarceration as they are situated within broader socio-political contexts that shape society’s over-reliance on incarceration as a means of social and racialized control. Drawing on history, anthropology, sociology, legal theory, critical race studies, and public health, the course will explore the everyday realities inside institutions of incarceration as they relate to suffering and care and how those are connected to policies and processes of subjugation outside the institutions’ walls. Case studies for examining these relationships include pregnancy, COVID-19, addiction, and mental illness behind bars. Students will engage with concepts such as disciplinary power, biopower, carceral and anti-carceral feminism, theories of care, medical abolition, and dual loyalty. While the course will primarily focus on the U.S. context, we will also draw comparisons to non-U.S. settings. Throughout the course we will seek to understand how institutions of incarceration are not, as popularly understood, isolated places “elsewhere,” but implicitly porous with so-called free society—and therefore as exemplars for understanding the connections among health, inequality, and state institutions.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Sufrin, Carolyn
• Room: Krieger 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): CES-LSO, CES-RI, MSCH-HUM

This course is designed to introduce and advance perspectives on radical approaches and analyses on the state of food and food systems, while learning about historic and contemporary examples of movement toward freedom and self-determination through land and food. The course is co-taught by author, organizer, educator, and filmmaker Eric Jackson (Black Yield Institute) and anthropologist Nicole Labruto (Johns Hopkins University). Black Yield Institute (BYI) is a Pan-African power institution based in Baltimore, serving as a think tank and collective action network that addresses food apartheid. The Black Land & Food Sovereignty Praxis course is BYI’s flagship popular political education course. The course immerses budding movement contributors in a theory- and practice-based classroom experience. Participants will develop new questions, challenge their beliefs, develop a critical analysis, learn skills, and build relationships that will prepare them for growth in movement toward Black land and food sovereignty. We will also offer a 3-credit spring semester project-based course that will continue work done in the fall course. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. The course builds on the model of the Sustainable Design Practicum (2021 and 2022) and the Environmental Justice Workshop (2023). Class sessions will take place each week in Cherry Hill in south Baltimore. Meeting times include transportation to and from the Homewood campus. Admission by permission of instructors. Email [email protected] to receive application.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Labruto, Nicole; Staff
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 17/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g. physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research. Cross listed with Public Health Studies.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Bok, Hilary
• Room: Bloomberg 272
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/16
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Torres Burgos, Carmen
• Room: Hodson 301
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Torres Burgos, Carmen
• Room: Hodson 301
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

Over the last three decades Italy, historically a country of emigrants—many of whom suffered from discrimination in the societies they joined—became a destination for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees from various countries, and particularly from Africa. Significant numbers of these immigrants came to Italy as a result of the country’s limited, though violent colonial history; others arrive because Italy is the closest entry-point to Europe. How have these migratory flows challenged Italian society’s sense of itself? How have they transformed the notion of Italian national identity? In recent years, growing numbers of Afro- and Afro-descendant writers, filmmakers, artists and Black activists are responding through their work to pervasive xenophobia and racism while challenging Italy’s self-representation as a ‘White’ country. How are they forcing it to broaden the idea of ‘Italianess’? How do their counternarratives compel Italy to confront its ignored colonial past? And, in what way have Black youth in Italy embraced the #Blacklivesmatter movement? This multimedia course examines representation of blackness and racialized otherness, whiteness, and national identity through literary, film, and visual archival material in an intersectional framework. Examining Italy’s internal, ‘Southern question,’ retracing Italy’s colonial history, and recognizing the experiences of Italians of immigrant origins and those of immigrants themselves, we’ll explore compelling works by writers and filmmakers such as Igiaba Scego, Gagriella Ghermandi, Maza Megniste, Dagmawi Yimer, and others.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Di Bianco, Laura
• Room: Hodson 315
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): INST-CP, INST-GLOBAL, MLL-ITAL

This course considers the importance of philosophical, literary, aesthetic, and other humanist approaches to ecology and environmental issues.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Gosetti, Jennifer Anna
• Room: Gilman 479
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/20
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Class reads the writings of scientists to explore what their words would have meant to them and their readers. Discussion will focus on the shifting scientific/cultural context throughout history. Authors include Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Crick and Watson.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Panek, Richard
• Room: Gilman 79
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENVS-MAJOR

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: 4/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, ARCH-ARCH, PMUS-INTRO, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE

This course focuses on research methods within the medical humanities, guiding students in using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches to conduct research on topics of their interest. Through exploring areas such as narrative inquiry into patient experiences, discourse analysis of doctor-patient communication, studies on how visual and performing arts affect perceptions of health and illness, and mixed-methods research on community health programs, students will learn to apply these methods to investigate the human aspects of healthcare. Emphasizing both research skills and ethical understanding, the course prepares students to undertake meaningful research that contributes to medical practice and patient care from a humanities perspective. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: M 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Cui, Wenqi
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course analyzes the role of artists and the visual arts in shaping ancient Greek medicine and the afterlife of these ideas. Grounded in the visual arts, we will explore class, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality as they intersect with developments in ancient medicine and later interpretations of this history. Includes excursions to local museums.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Stager, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/18
• PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

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: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Pandey, Nandini
• Room: Greenhouse 000
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE

From quacks to plague, from humors to hypochondria, from AIDS to cancer, this lecture course examines literary representations of suffering, disease and treatment across genres and across time. In particular it explores how early modern literature represents and occasionally satirizes medicine, and how contemporary writers inherit and revise early modern modes. Over the semester, students will become familiar with the diverse array of forms of medical practice, the classed and gendered hierarchies in which medical practitioners were organized during different historical periods, and the various stances and attitudes towards medicine as discourse, profession, and field of knowledge that result. After an initial grounding in some historical and methodological basics, we will proceed to wrestle with a range of literary texts (prose works, poetry, drama, and memoir). Authors will include Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Moliere, Gunn, Sontag, Lorde, and Boyer.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Daniel, Andrew
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): ENGL-PR1800, ENGL-LEC, MSCH-HUM

From quacks to plague, from humors to hypochondria, from AIDS to cancer, this lecture course examines literary representations of suffering, disease and treatment across genres and across time. In particular it explores how early modern literature represents and occasionally satirizes medicine, and how contemporary writers inherit and revise early modern modes. Over the semester, students will become familiar with the diverse array of forms of medical practice, the classed and gendered hierarchies in which medical practitioners were organized during different historical periods, and the various stances and attitudes towards medicine as discourse, profession, and field of knowledge that result. After an initial grounding in some historical and methodological basics, we will proceed to wrestle with a range of literary texts (prose works, poetry, drama, and memoir). Authors will include Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Moliere, Gunn, Sontag, Lorde, and Boyer.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Daniel, Andrew
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): ENGL-PR1800, ENGL-LEC, MSCH-HUM

Cancer, the ‘emperor of all maladies,’ is a leading cause of death worldwide. Cancer is, seemingly, everywhere: it brings to mind screening programs, pinkwashed fundraisers, promises of a cure, and myriad memoirs and fictions, lending cancer an abundance of meaning in our contemporary world. With developments in genetic testing and early detection, many aspects of contemporary cancer care have transformed—and with them, questions around risk and responsibility. In the clinic, cancer outcomes are increasingly understood in terms of individualized risk. Yet, these developments and ways of understanding cancer are limited to urban centers of the world, largely in the U.S. and Europe, with access to costly medical technologies. Further, experiences and outcomes of cancer care, from surveillance to treatment, refract along lines of race, gender, and geography, and the disease is a frame through which the politics of healthcare can be starkly seen and traced. In this upper-level undergraduate seminar, students are invited to explore cancer care—inequalities, experiences, and poetics—through literary and ethnographic analysis.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Roth, Sarah
• Room: Mergenthaler 426
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 15/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 8/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 18/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Religion is often portrayed as being at odds with science. From Galileo’s treatment by the Roman Inquisition to contemporary Creationism museums, we are told that religious institutions do not support science. Likewise, religious people don’t make good scientists – or do they? Is religion really the thorn in the side of science that so many claim it is? In this class, we will discover the interwoven history between scientific practice and religion, beginning with the atomism and humoral theories of the Ancient Greeks and culminating in 21st century debates about stem cells and cloning. Many of the great scientific minds were also deeply religious – how did their beliefs shape their practice of science and approach to the natural world? Is religion truly antithetical to scientific practice? And if not, why do we so readily assume that it is?

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 75
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/25
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The last 250 years have witnessed significant transformations in science. This course surveys many of these key developments, including the chemical revolution, evolutionary theory, the periodic table, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, genetics and biotechnology, and climate science. It highlights questions of discovery, professionalization, impact, and advocacy. How have scientists built upon prior discoveries, and what do we mean when we call something a “revolution”? What are the social, political, and environmental consequences of scientific research? How have scientists promoted their achievements and influenced policy at different times and places? The course will address these questions through readings, lectures, and discussion sections.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Hodson 213
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The last 250 years have witnessed significant transformations in science. This course surveys many of these key developments, including the chemical revolution, evolutionary theory, the periodic table, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, genetics and biotechnology, and climate science. It highlights questions of discovery, professionalization, impact, and advocacy. How have scientists built upon prior discoveries, and what do we mean when we call something a “revolution”? What are the social, political, and environmental consequences of scientific research? How have scientists promoted their achievements and influenced policy at different times and places? The course will address these questions through readings, lectures, and discussion sections.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Hodson 213
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course explores health and society in England, 1500 to 1800 including healing practices at all levels of society, concepts of health and illness, patient experiences, and patterns of disease. Recommended Course Background: At least one course in History or History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/16
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The knowledge and practices of science and medicine are not as self-evident as they may appear. When we observe, what do we see? What counts as evidence? How does evidence become fact? How do facts circulate and what are their effects? Who is included in and excluded from our common-sense notions of science, medicine, and technology? This course will introduce students to central theoretical concerns in Science and Technology Studies and the Medical Humanities, focusing on enduring problematics that animate scholars. In conjunction with examinations of theoretical bases, students will learn to evaluate the methodological tools used in different fields in the humanities to study the production and circulation of scientific knowledge and the structures of medical care and public health. This problem-centered approach will help students understand and apply key concepts and approaches in critical studies of science, technology, and medicine.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Robbins, Gabrielle Lydia Marie
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Health care can be expensive for those who receive it and those who provide it. In the United States, patients go into debt while doctors suffer from burnout and nurses rush through understaffed wards. The U.S. has the highest healthcare spending of any wealthy nation, yet suffers comparatively worse outcomes. This seminar brings together social science research with patient experiences that show the human face of the American health care debate. We read the work of scholars, poets, and medical practitioners who reflect on core questions: What should be the government's role in healthcare provision? What alternative models have people in marginalized groups developed when the system fails them? Understanding both failures and successes gives us the tools to build new paths.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 400
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Foundational authors of detective fiction from Edgar Allan Poe onwards often used medical doctors and themes in their mystery plots. It's no coincidence that medicine and crime fiction share a vocabulary of clues, evidence, and diagnosis. The mystery genre was integrally tied to the rise of scientific medicine as a respected profession. Indeed, classic detective stories are practically propaganda for the scientific method, showing readers how the powerful tools of observation and inference can solve any problem. Over the course of the 20th century, not only doctors, but also psychologists, social scientists and historians adopted the authoritative stance of the detective in constructing or reconstructing facts. As we study Sherlock Holmes and his modern proteges, such as TV doctor Gregory House, we will analyze how "medical mystery" narratives can shape our thinking about problems and solutions in medicine. We will consider post-modern detective stories that offer alternatives to the "Holmsian" model for understanding the complex clinical realities of today.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Puglionesi, Alicia Gladys
• Room: Gilman 17
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course surveys the literary and cultural productions of Black and Latinx science fictioneers and their generative confrontations with the sci-fi genre’s fraught colonial, gendered, and racialized technoscientific origins. By engaging works of the Afrofuturist and Latinxfuturist imagination (ex. film, short stories, novels, and visual art) alongside science fiction criticism, and readings spanning the subfields of feminist, queer, and postcolonial science and technology studies, we’ll consider how Black and Latinx science fictioneers, past and present, appropriate the idioms of science and technology to upend essentialist accounts of gender, race, and sexuality, and fashion radical remappings of “gendered,” “raced,” and “sexed” bodies. Throughout the course of the semester, we'll also be interrogating how (and to what end) Black and Latinx sci-fi writers and creators such as Octavia E. Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle Monáe, Firelei Báez, E.G. Condé , and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, among others, complicate, reconceptualize, and expand the contours of the “science” in science fiction. In so doing, we will assess the implications (be these social, political, epistemological, etc.) of positioning Black and Latinx peoples, who have more often than not been made the objects of science (and scientific racism), as key interlocutors, producers, and critical surveyors of technoscientific knowledge.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Vado, Karina A
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Bordering Russia, China, and India, Central Asia has been a critical arena of great power politics long before 9/11 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This seminar examines the history of Central Asia throughout the long twentieth century, drawing on scholarly and historical sources with a focus on the history of science, technology, and medicine. The region is explored both as part of global modernity and through its unique Soviet experience. From the Russian conquest to Soviet control of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, Central Asia’s social fabric, governmental structures, and international connections were profoundly influenced by transportation and communication infrastructures, racialized medical practices, and the Cold War’s nuclear arms race, space competition, and computerization. By revealing the enduring material impact of the Soviet scientific and technological legacy, the seminar encourages students to engage with key methodological issues in global history and in Science and Technology Studies, including conflicting political and scientific chronologies as well as post- and decolonial framings.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Maryland 104
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 18/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course examines how bodies, genders, and sexualities in the modern Middle East, from the nineteenth century to the present, have been shaped and represented via changing and competing discourses. Through a variety of historical, ethnographic, sociological, media, and literary readings, the course investigates dynamic representations of bodies in flux: colonized bodies, medicalized bodies, gendered bodies, sexualized bodies, (re)productive bodies, aging bodies, and bodies in revolt. The course pays special attention to science, technology, and medicine in their interaction with cultures, laws, and religious practices. Some of the topics covered include analyzing histories of and discourses on gender, sexuality, health and disease, reproduction, genital cutting, and gender-based violence.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/16
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

What is the relationship between the histories of music and scientific development? How is making music a kind of laboratory research? Musical instruments and aesthetics have always emerged in dialogue with developments in science, technology, and medicine. The first stethoscope borrowed from the design of flutes and challenged physicians to grapple with new concepts like "sound," "signal," and "noise." The automation of industrial machinery was influenced by earlier musical automata--technology that sought to mechanically synchronize, sequence and loop musical phrases. Concepts like logarithms, combinatorics, resonance and sympathetic vibration, melancholy and mania, etc., relied on the contributions of musicians, music theorists, and instrument-makers. This seminar looks at points of contact between music and histories of science, technology, and medicine through both scholarly and creative lenses. The course integrates creative and experimental music making with reading and short writing assignments. Familiarity with music notation and some basic musical skills will be helpful but are not strictly necessary. Permission of instructor required. Limit 15 students.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Ludwig, Loren
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Proclamations of an AI revolution are ubiquitous, with utopian visions from technological enthusiasts and dystopian predictions from skeptics growing in number and pathos. In this class, we will challenge the current focus on the transformative potential of machine learning by examining it through the broader historical lens of automation, mechanization, cybernetics, and computerization. Course materials include foundational works in AI as well as science fiction, allowing us to explore the concept of technological imagination as a bridge between public science, cultural production, and the development of scientific and engineering research programs. Spanning from Ancient Greece to modern Europe, from Cold War-era U.S. and Soviet Union to contemporary China, this seminar raises critical questions about the meanings of “intelligence,” “rationality,” and “mind.”

• Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Bloomberg 172
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

What constitutes an “emergency” in medicine? How has our understanding of emergencies evolved over time in response to historical events, cultural shifts, popular media, and changes in the healthcare system? How has this contributed to the development of the specialty of emergency medicine? In what ways does time, urgency, and emergency differ when one is within the walls of the hospital? This course will use a multimodal approach to tackle various facets of an “emergency” in medicine – for instance, comparing how healthcare practitioners conceptualize “emergency” vs the how the broader population views emergencies, considering the development and implications of the concept of triage, and evaluating the provision of emergency care in times of crisis such as natural disasters or the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This course will also offer a unique local look at what “emergency” means at Johns Hopkins - we will leverage the Chesney Medical Archives to understand how emergency care has evolved across time locally at Johns Hopkins, and students will also have the opportunity to shadow the course instructor (an emergency physician) in the Johns Hopkins Emergency Department.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Balhara, Kamna
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The Research Capstone seminar prepares students to undertake original extended research in the medical humanities and science studies. The course will help students synthesize the interdisciplinary knowledge upon which the Medicine, Science, and the Humanities (MSH) major is built. Students will have the opportunity to form research topics, devise and execute research plans, write a research grant application, and share their work with the class. The course is aimed at MSH juniors seeking to create Honors projects, though the course is open to any student wishing to learn or enhance research skills.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This project-based course will provide training and skills in movement building through radical analyses of and approaches toward the state of food and food systems. The course immerses budding movement contributors in a theory- and practice-based experience. Students will engage in guided projects that support the movement toward freedom and self-determination through land and food. The course is co-taught by author, organizer, educator, and filmmaker Eric Jackson (Black Yield Institute) and anthropologist Nicole Labruto (Johns Hopkins University). Black Yield Institute (BYI) is a Pan-African power institution based in Baltimore, serving as a think tank and collective action network that addresses food apartheid. Participants will learn new research and design skills, contribute to projects relevant to BYI’s work, develop a critical analysis, and build relationships that will prepare them for growth in movement toward Black land and food sovereignty. The course builds on AS.145.400 Black Land & Food Sovereignty Praxis: An Environmental Justice Workshop, though the course is not a prerequisite. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. Class sessions will take place each week in Cherry Hill in south Baltimore. Meeting times include transportation to and from the Homewood campus. Admission by permission of instructors.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Labruto, Nicole
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Ramos, Rosario; Torres Burgos, Carmen
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Ramos, Rosario; Torres Burgos, Carmen
• Room: Gilman 75
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

How long has AI been part of our cultural imagination? This course critically engages instances of artificial intelligence in thought, literature, and film from the 17th century to the present. In conversation with the realities of machine learning, algorithms, generative AI, large language models, automation, and so on, we will investigate the nature of artificial intelligence vis-à-vis issues of labor, consciousness, collectivity, individualism, fantasy, and futurity. Students will consider philosophical texts alongside works of science fiction, literature, and film. Readings may include texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Poe, Hofmannsthal, Marx, Foucault, Alan Turin, Charles Babbage, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula Le Guin. No technical knowledge or prior courses are required!

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Todarello, Josh
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

What is an illness? How do we define a sick body? How can literature, films and art convey suffering and healing? How do traditional histories of medicine structure sickness? Is there a perception––and representation––of illness that can be specific to Latin American culture? How does the Spanish language address issues of sickness, disability, and pain? This course will explore experiences of illness, suffering, pain, and healing through the readings of narratives, works of theory and criticism, and the writings of artists themselves, as well as film, artistic practices, and documentaries. Discussions will place the narratives of illness in the intersections with the history of public health, biomedical history, and the sociocultural history of disease in Latin America. Within the framework of the Medicine, Science, and the Humanities major, students will learn to recognize the value and relevance of literature and art to their personal, educational, and professional growth.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Heffes, Gisela
• Room: Gilman 479
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Class reads the writings of scientists to explore what their words would have meant to them and their readers. Discussion will focus on the shifting scientific/cultural context throughout history. Authors include Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Crick and Watson.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Panek, Richard
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENVS-MAJOR

In this cutting-edge course, an acting class designed for pre-med students who are interested in a career in either clinical work or research, we will explore ways in which collaboration, curiosity, and connection can enhance your understanding and ability to be an effective medical professional. Empathy, perspective-taking, analysis of dramatic literature with medical themes, and devising a piece around medical ethics will be the focus of the activities. No acting experience is required, just a willingness to explore your creativity in an inclusive environment.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Rome, Susan R
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The field of medicine has been a key site where race has been constructed, deployed, and contested. Race and racism have played a crucial role in the development of medicine in the United States, from the medicalization of Blackness to different racialized health indicators. Through this course we will ask: How has the field of medicine constructed race? And how have race and racism been challenged within medicine? This is an upper-level, reading intensive seminar course.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Solanki, Durgesh
• Room: Bloomberg 172
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 6/18
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces students to core concepts that define the sociological approach to health, illness and health care. Topics include: health disparities, social context of health and illness, and the Sociology of Medicine.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:50PM, W 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Agree, Emily
• Room: Mergenthaler 111
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, MSCH-HUM, SPOL-UL

This course introduces students to core concepts that define the sociological approach to health, illness and health care. Topics include: health disparities, social context of health and illness, and the Sociology of Medicine.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:50PM, W 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Agree, Emily
• Room: Mergenthaler 111
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, MSCH-HUM, SPOL-UL

This course introduces students to core concepts that define the sociological approach to health, illness and health care. Topics include: health disparities, social context of health and illness, and the Sociology of Medicine.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:50PM, W 4:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: Agree, Emily
• Room: Mergenthaler 111
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, MSCH-HUM, SPOL-UL

This course introduces students to core concepts that define the sociological approach to health, illness and health care. Topics include: health disparities, social context of health and illness, and the Sociology of Medicine.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:50PM, W 4:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: Agree, Emily
• Room: Mergenthaler 111
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, MSCH-HUM, SPOL-UL

Museums across the globe are rewriting their infrastructure, energy use, waste management, and exhibitions and conservation policies and practices to respond to our ecological crises. Students will conduct field research and analyze data; investigate “next” practices, case studies, and the challenges particular to museums; and write a white paper; all with an eye towards contributing to the BMA’s Turn Again to the Earth initiative - an eco-challenge, sustainability planning, and suite of art exhibitions dedicated to environmental themes.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE