Museums are crucibles, places where public memory, identity, and cultural values are debated, hammered out and refined. This First-Year Seminar examines this premise through guided discussion, close looking at exhibitions past and present, written reflection, and visits that go behind the scenes of many of Baltimore's history, art, industry, and science museums. Just what is a museum and how does it compare to other sorts of cultural institutions? What responsibilities do museums have to their communities? to their collections? How do they balance the two? How are they adapting to broader social, economic, and cultural changes? And what is their future? Learn how to decode museums. Discover the varied roles they play in the life of a city like Baltimore.

• Days/Times: W 10:30AM - 1:00PM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room: Hmwd House Wine Cllr
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This First-Year Seminar examines the intersections of queer theory, performance studies, and LGBTQ history with a focus on “queer worldmaking:” the ways in which performances—both theatrical and everyday rituals—can establish oppositional publics and politics. We take an interdisciplinary approach to historical research, considering embodied memory, gesture, and ritual as methods for learning, preserving, and transmitting cultural knowledge. Case studies include the ballroom and voguing scene in Baltimore and beyond, migratory street youth subcultures, drag performance, and queer nightlife.

• Days/Times: T 12:00PM - 2:30PM
• Instructor: Plaster, Joseph
• Room: Mergenthaler 431
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

From embellished silver pens and abolitionist secretary desks to contemporary artists manipulating historical postcards and making fax collages, this course will explore the materiality, technologies, and aesthetics of written communications from the 18th century to the present. This research-centered course will engage directly with objects in the Baltimore Museum of Art collection, in preparation for an upcoming exhibition. Topics include the development of specific decorative arts and designs in conjunction with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century postal and bureaucratic history, letter-writing as a mode of resistance, strategic illegibility and asemic writing as a form of critical artistic practice, and the importance of mail art as conceptual and institutional critique. Includes hands-on work in the museum and class visits with BMA curator Dr. Leslie Cozzi.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Brown, Rebecca Mary
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/5
• PosTag(s): HART-MODERN, MSCH-HUM

This course explores the surviving “objects” of the ancient Greco-Roman world, and the histories of their excavation, organization, and preservation in museum and library collections. From ancient objects and sculptures, ancient Greek papyri, scrolls, and late-antique and medieval books, to the revival of Greek and Roman traditions in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, we will learn how these objects help shape and transform our understanding of the ancient world over two millennia, up to the formation of the great antiquities museums of the modern era. This hands-on course will take advantage of ancient objects and texts in Baltimore, at the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as the Archaeology Museum at JHU and the rare book and manuscript collections of the Sheridan Libraries at JHU.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Havens, Earle A; Michalek, Martin William
• Room: BLC 2043
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): MLL-ENGL

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Kingsley, Jennifer P
• Room: Gilman 17
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 22/25
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, ARCH-ARCH, PMUS-INTRO, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE, CDS-SSMC

This course critically examines the role of exhibitions in shaping cultural narratives and public understanding of people and places across the globe. Students will explore the history, theory, and practice of exhibiting cultures in museums, galleries, and digital platforms. Topics include curatorial ethics, representation and identity, postcolonial critiques, audience engagement, and the impact of emerging technologies on exhibition design. Through case studies and hands-on projects, students will analyze how cultural heritage is displayed and interpreted, considering issues of appropriation, authenticity, and inclusivity. The course culminates in a final project where students conceptualize and design their own cultural exhibition proposal.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Roome, Kristine
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): CDS-SSMC

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: McGinn, Emily
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): PMUS-PRAC, MSCH-HUM, ARCH-RELATE