How might a critical and material art history contribute to contemporary debates in theory? Feminist and queer theories, on the one hand, and ecological thought, on the other, have often turned to metaphors of weaving in their attempt to think antihierarchical forms of relationality. Against models of autonomous selfhood, weaving is evoked to foreground the material fact of our interdependence with human and other forms of life, and to articulate relations that are all too often discounted in western liberal cultures – along with the care work that goes into maintaining them. This seminar lends texture to metaphors of weaving by looking at material practices. We consider how the study of textile and fiber arts informs theoretical concerns, while also attending to the ways in which our reading of theory impacts our appreciation of artistic techniques and practices. The course will include two group excursions on Saturdays to the exhibition “Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, sponsored by the Faculty-Student Engagement and Enrichment Fund.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Schopp, Caroline Lillian
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/6
• PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

This course will examine films (features and shorts) throughout the history of cinema beginning with Alice  Guy-Blaché . We will look at how form reveals content, thematic issues and how films relate to the culture and politics of the filmmaker. Filmmakers include Germaine Dulac, Nelly Kaplan, Marguerite Duras, Chantal Ackerman, Barbara Hammer and Nina Menkes. Readings include critical essays, texts by the filmmakers and fiction. Assignments consist of weekly papers on the films.

• Days/Times: T 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings, Th 5:00PM - 7:30PM
• Instructor: Yasinsky, Karen
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST

What is gender? We talk so much about it, but what is it really? How does one distinguish between the social and historical life of gender vis-à-vis sex as a biological category? Yet even the category sex as biology is not as straightforward as it seems and often indicates arbitrariness and blurriness when it comes to demarking definite lines of difference between a binary gender model (male, female). Anthropologists are increasingly exploring gender in multiple contexts, from kinship structures and political economies, as well as in settings of piety and religiosity, to spaces in which the category of human itself becomes difficult to define. In this course we will engage in genealogies as well as current debates. We will learn and discuss a wide array of perspectives, debates, and theories that have shaped feminist anthropology, queer theory, and black feminist theory.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Mohamed, Sabine
• Room: Mergenthaler 426
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-GI

This course investigates sexual cultures through the lens of modern Queer History in the United States and Western Europe, with forays into global and transnational histories.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, HIST-US, INST-GLOBAL

This is a writing intensive class exploring the current wealth of women playwrights, including Pulitzer Prize winners: Wendy Wasserstein, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, and Jackie Sibblies Drury (2019 Prize for FAIRVIEW). We will discuss Script Analysis and read (and see) plays by numerous writers including Claire Barron, Kia Corthron, Theresa Rebeck, Sarah Ruhl, Danai Gurira, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, and Hansol Jung. This class will include a mid-term and a Final Paper.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Denithorne, Margaret
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course will examine the role of housing, or the absence thereof, in shaping quality of life. It will explore the consequences of the places in which we live and how we are housed. Consideration will be given to overcrowding, affordability, accessibility, and past and existing housing policies and their influence on society. Special attention will be given to the problem of homelessness.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Greif, Meredith
• Room: Krieger 302
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, CES-CC, CES-LE

Course focuses on sexual development, sexuality across the lifespan, gender identity, sexual attraction and arousal, sexually transmitted disease, and the history of commercial sex workers and pornography. Please note that the use of electronic devices is not permitted during this class, in order to promote the full interactive potential of this engaging seminar-style offering. Open to Juniors & Seniors within the following majors/minors: Behavioral Biology; Biology; Cognitive Science; Medicine, Science & the Humanities; Molecular & Cellular Bio; Neuroscience; Psychological & Brain Sciences; Public Health; Sociology; Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality. Students may receive credit for either AS.290.330 or AS.290.420, but not both.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Kraft, Chris S
• Room: Maryland 309
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/30
• PosTag(s): BEHB-SOCSCI, MSCH-HUM

China’s turbulent 20th century was marked by social and political upheavals, wars, and economic hardship. Women writers played an important role in documenting these events. How did women experience and understand their historical context? How were their experiences and interpretations different from (or similar to) those of their male counterparts? This course will search modern China’s mind through women’s writings. Students will read works by women writers of the “long 20th century” (roughly 1890s-2020s) including, but not limited to, Ding Ling, Xiao Hong, Zhang Ailing, and Zhang Jie. We will engage in close readings of their literary works in context of their life experiences, considering key themes such as women’s identity and agency, nationalism, revolution, and social reform as well as new and changing gender norms. Basic knowledge of modern Chinese history helpful but not required.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Jin
• Room: Mergenthaler 252
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

We will try to get a quick overview of the recent history of patriarchy in China, South Korea, and Japan from the mid-twentieth century to our present and then compare the initiatives of feminists to transform the lives of women throughout these three societies. We will also debate whether or how it makes sense to adapt the Western notions of patriarchy and sexism as well as the Western political program of feminism to the non-Western context of East Asia by reading books by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Henning, Stefan
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-CP

This course aims to expand and enrich students coordinates for understanding the problem of sexual violence, exploring how sexual violence appears in the weave of everyday life, as foundational to the politics of the nation state, and across the apparatus of the law. We will take a connective and comparative approach in which sexual violence is studied vis-à-vis the feminist postcolonial and transnational critique of gendered belonging to the nation state. In so doing, gender, sexuality, race, and coloniality become analytics that unsettle and complicate the contemporary distinctions of West/East & Global North/South. We will ask questions such as: why are sex and death constitutive to the modern nation state? How is everyday life remade in the shadows of catastrophic violence? How can repair be imagined outside of a medical or juridical vocabulary?

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Katz, Talia S
• Room: Maryland 202
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/18
• PosTag(s): INST-CP

This discussion oriented seminar will offer an intensive survey of cultural production by trans, non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and intersex artists, writers, poets, and musicians. We will examine how this body of work engages with and contests sexological norms around gender and sexuality, relate it to contemporary critical writing by trans theorists. In a moment of greater visibility for trans people, but one characterized by revanchist backlash, how are forms, genres, and aesthetic strategies used to understand the production of gender in relationship to racism, colonialism, and capitalism? How are trans people forming their own networks to aid in the production and distribution of their work? How do we at Johns Hopkins—site of much problematic medical work on gender and sexuality—understand our positioning relative to these currents? Class discussion will be supplemented by conversations with visiting artists, publishers, and editors, and by an associated series of public readings, lectures, and screenings. We may cover work by Claude Cahun, Leslie Feinberg, Jordy Rosenberg, Juliana Huxtable, Tourmaline, Kai Cheng Thom, Kay Gabriel, Cat Fitzpatrick, and Joshua Whitehead, among others.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Giardini, Jo Aurelio
• Room: Jenkins 107
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/15
• 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

From the early 20th century, Chinese society underwent a turbulent process of modern transformation. Industrialization, urbanization, and democratization challenged previous gender and family norms. Meanwhile, at exactly this time, the Chinese film industry flourished, especially in the modern metropolis of Shanghai. Women and family provided a useful microcosm through which to explore national questions related to revolution, war, and modernity. They also entertained a public eager for new leisure pursuits. Popular feature films not only recorded but also interpreted and helped shape family and gender roles. Using filmic representations as the main material this First-Year Seminar will survey the "family question" (and "the woman question") in 20th century China

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Jin
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• 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

Violence, ritualized and anarchic, celebrated and deplored, in popular film from silent era melodrama and slapstick comedy to contemporary sports, crime, and combat films. Two short critical papers and an oral presentation. Interested non-majors and pre-majors may contact the instructor about permission to enroll: [email protected].

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:20PM, Th 7:30PM - 10:00PM Screenings
• Instructor: Bucknell, Lucy
• Room: Krieger 180
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): FILM-CRITST

Why are cities associated with sex and vice? Are cities a natural refuge for LGBT people? This course explores the role of American cities in the history of sexuality, including Baltimore.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Gill Peterson, Jules
• Room: Bloomberg 276
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, CES-CC, CES-GI

Witchcraft, magic, carnivals, riots, folk tales, gender roles; fertility cults and violence especially in Britain, Germany, France, and Italy.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Marshall, John W
• Room: Maryland 114
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/25
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, HIST-EUROPE

Childbirth is an event that is highly cultural, and is accompanied by gestures and beliefs that say a lot about the society in which they can be observed. This class will be based on Ancient Egyptian texts (translated), images and objects related to beliefs and practices surrounding pregnancy, birth-giving and the first moments of human life. We will discover the Egyptian views on procreation, the objects, the spells and the formulas used to protect pregnancy and childbirth – one of the most dangerous moments in a woman’s life –, the divine entities invoked, the reactions caused by non-ordinary births (for example, twins), and the purification rites that punctuate the post-partum period. Finally, we will see that the first biological birth is a model on which many beliefs about life after death are based. Several guest researchers will present birth and childbirth in other ancient societies in order to broaden the discussion and establish comparisons.

• Days/Times: WF 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Arnette, Marie-Lys
• Room: Gilman 130G
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/20
• PosTag(s): ARCH-ARCH, ARCH-RELATE

This course will cover theories and research on social attraction, both in the context of romantic and platonic relationships (friendships), at various stages of development including adolescence and later adulthood. This includes a focus on topics such as first impressions, courtship, internet applications, rejection, para-social relationships, and more. We will draw on evolutionary theories, sociocultural and situational forces, personality traits, family/peer influence, and incorporate multidisciplinary research from fields spanning psychology, communication, and sociology. Coursework includes critiques of existing literature, discussions, research proposals, and presentations. Instructor approval is required. Prerequisite: AS 200.133

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Selterman, Dylan Faulkner
• Room: Bloomberg 276
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/19
• PosTag(s): PSYC-SEM

This course will examine the role of housing, or the absence thereof, in shaping quality of life. It will explore the consequences of the places in which we live and how we are housed. Consideration will be given to overcrowding, affordability, accessibility, and past and existing housing policies and their influence on society. Special attention will be given to the problem of homelessness.

• Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Greif, Meredith
• Room: Krieger 302
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/25
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, CES-CC, CES-LE

Focuses on reproductive physiology and biochemical and molecular regulation of the female and male reproductive tracts. Topics include the hypothalamus and pituitary, peptide and steroid hormone action, epididymis and male accessory sex organs, female reproductive tract, menstrual cycle, ovulation and gamete transport, fertilization and fertility enhancement, sexually transmitted diseases, and male and female contraceptive methods. Introductory lectures on each topic followed by research-oriented lectures and readings from current literature.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 4:40PM
• Instructor: Zirkin, Barry R
• Room: Olin 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/110
• PosTag(s): BIOL-UL, BEHB-BIOBEH, CHBE-ACBE

This course will cover the major world population changes in the past century as well as the contemporary situation and projections for this century. Topics include rapid population growth, the historical and continuing decline of death and birth rates, contraceptive methods as well as family planning and child survival programs, population aging, urbanization, population and the environment and the demographic effects of HIV/AIDS and Covid.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Becker, stan
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 35/75
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, CES-PD

This course will serve as an intensive introduction to contemporary approaches to theories of gender and sexuality, and their relationship to cultural production and politics. Students will develop a historically situated knowledge of the development of feminist and queer scholarship in the 20th and 21st centuries, and consider the multiply intersecting forces which shape understandings of sexual and gender identity. We will consider both foundational questions (What is gender? Who is the subject of feminism? What defines queerness?) and questions of aesthetic and political strategy, and spend substantial time engaging with feminist and queer scholarship in comparative contexts. Students will be introduced to debates in Black feminism, intersectionality theory, third world feminism, socialist feminism, queer of colour critique, and trans* theory. We will read both canonical texts and recent works of scholarship, and the final weeks of the course will be devoted to thinking with our theoretical and historical readings against a selection of feminist and queer literature and cinema. No prior familiarity with the study of gender and sexuality is necessary.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 21/35
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

What does it mean that until relatively recently, the center of queer/trans culture was the underground – a metaphorical space of illegality – and what are the political possibilities of such illegality? This seminar will consider how Black/trans fugitivity and interracial sex, trans identity theft and forgery, black market hormones and silicone injections, sex work, and mood-altering drugs defined same-sex desiring and gender-variant cultures during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Far from being a lawless place, we will analyze how life in the underground, including stints in prison, concretely shaped gender and sexual possibilities, subcultural codes of conduct, and practices of community-making.

• Days/Times: Th 2:30PM - 5:00PM
• Instructor: Amin, Kadji
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Popular culture today is awash with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories. Feminist literature, though, has been thinking about the end of the world since 1826, when Mary Shelley’s The Last Man imagined a pandemic wiping out almost the entire global population. The first apocalyptic novel in English describes the end of the world as we know it: in the wake of disaster, The Last Man pauses to assemble alternative forms of collective life. Students in this course will read contemporary feminist fiction that responds to The Last Man by pressing the genre of apocalyptic literature into dialogue with feminist politics. We will explore key generic preoccupations that are also foci of feminist thought: reproduction and the family; separatism and utopia; gender and the environment; the human and the posthuman. Across our readings, our focus will be the duality of apocalyptic literature as both critique of the existing order and as thought experiment with what might replace it. What is the role of apocalypse in the feminist imagination? How have feminist authors made use of a genre also historically characterized by fantasies of racialized violence and class conflict, orientalist projection, and sexist stereotype? Why—and why not—might it be valuable to feminism to imagine the end of things?

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Franchi, Sophia A
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM