In this First-Year Seminar, we will examine the roles of love, fear, anger, and hope in our lives. We’ll ask questions about their value, danger, and appropriateness or inappropriateness in our lives at both the individual level and the level of political life. Some examples of questions we’ll consider are these: Should we love those who have wronged us? Is enjoying a horror movie morally problematic? How is fear used in political rhetoric and how should we respond to it? Is anger acceptable, or perhaps even necessary, in protest? Is love necessary for meaningful social change? When and how is hope justifiable and useful? We’ll also draw connections between these emotions and engage with related concepts such as forgiveness and trust. While our engagement with these concepts will be primarily through philosophy, we will also consider works of art and think about the value of portraying and evoking these emotions through various forms of art. Students can expect to read philosophical texts, journalism, occasional fiction and poetry, and to watch at least one horror film, among the sources for the course. Possible authors include Berit Brogaard, Noël Carroll, Myisha Cherry, Raja Halwani, Stephen King, Adrienne Martin, Martha Nussbaum, Edgar Allan Poe, Jason Stanley, and Desmond Tutu. We will take at least one field trip to a location in Baltimore during the semester. Students will emerge from this course with a more nuanced understanding of these powerful and often controversial emotions, and the ability to talk about them in an academic and public context.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Koullas, Sandy Gillian
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Animals have evolved a vast array of sensory systems that support a rich repertoire of natural behaviors. Some animals live in dark environments and use tactile, chemical, electrical and auditory sensors that allow them to operate in the absence of light. Other animals rely heavily on vision and take advantage of colors that humans cannot see. In this First-Year Seminar, we will explore extraordinary adaptations of sensory systems in animals that live on land and under water. Our focus will be on sensory systems that guide navigation and foraging behaviors in species as diverse as star-nosed moles, weakly electric fish, honeybees, and echolocating bats. As we delve into understanding the extraordinary sensory systems of selected species, we will also consider how these animals have inspired literary and visual artists. We aim to introduce students to a rich interdisciplinary experience that opens their eyes to new areas of inquiry as they take advantage of local resources, such as the National Aquarium, Baltimore Zoo, Wyman Park, Peabody Institute, and Baltimore Museum of Art.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Moss, Cynthia F.
• Room: Ames 217
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, with almost 7 million tonnes grown, harvested, processed, and packaged annually. Whether you use loose leaf or tea bags, drink green tea or black, add sugar or cream, use it to stay awake or go to sleep, or consume it in solitude or with friends to share gossip, you are participating in the worldwide consumption of tea, which has created economic relations (and wars), new ecosystems for plants and animals (and humans), and is culturally significant in public and private spaces. In short, tea organizes people’s homes, government meetings, economies, investment markets, and landscapes. In this First-Year Seminar, we will examine the history and present-day production of tea and how it creates and recreates social relations and environments. In addition to learning about tea (and tasting different kinds), students will be exposed to research methodologies in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and communication studies. By the end of class, students will have an understanding of the different kinds of teas (and how to prepare them), the role tea plays in society, and how tea functions within ecosystems.

• Days/Times: W 12:00PM - 2:30PM
• Instructor: Kuo, Huei-Ying; Ludden, Jason
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): CES-LE

In this First-Year Seminar, we’ll gather high-level hoopheads to study the NBA, the coolest professional sports league in the world. Our key questions will be why and how is the NBA so dope? But also, we’ll use the methods of humanistic, linguistic, and rhetorical analysis to study the culture, language, and iconography of the NBA. No zone defenses here: we’re bringing a full-court press to phenomena and artifacts like dunk contest; the euro-step; why no one likes Rudy Gobert; style from Allen Iverson to Shai-Gilgeous Alexander; uniform, court, and mascot designs; how advanced statistical analytics have changed the game (deep breath), and much, much more. And while my passion is the NBA, students are welcome to bring their expertise and interests in the WNBA, international basketball leagues, and college hoops to the mix. We’ll read texts old and new, traditional and funky (from David Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game, about the 1978 Portland Trailblazers, to posts from the defunct and very influential FreeDarko blog and Mitchell S. Jackson’s Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion). We’ll watch highlights (of big dunks and, even better, teammates’ sideline reactions) and movies such as Hustle and Hoop Dreams. Oh, and if you’re into experiential learning, we’ll probably check out a Wizards game in D.C. and play a little pick up at the gym. I hope my knees hold up. Meet you at the rim.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Pavesich, Matthew
• Room: Gilman 4
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In FUTURE_SHOCK, students tackle the tortures of invention in academic writing by analyzing how writers in the past invented entire futures, not out of thin air, but based on what they saw in the present. This course positions writing as a means of using and reusing the texts we encounter around us and the experiences in which we find them as sources of creativity. In class we’ll draw inspiration from future-focused genres like cyberpunk media and industrial music, and we’ll get tips from unlikely sources like mail art, graffiti, computer hacking, and more. In individual semester projects, students will write manifestos, reviews, genre analyses, an argumentative essay, and more as they develop a low-stakes, personal interest into a topic fit for an academic research project. Students will support their individual development by collaborating in small crews to learn rhetorical awareness, genre familiarity, and research techniques by observing and entering online communities like Reddit, Twitch, and Discord. Additionally, three non-academic experts will visit the class to discuss how they excel in the worlds of videography, beat-making/sampling, and web design by using and reusing the same writing and research skills we’ll be working with in class.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Benson, Schuler
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In FUTURE_SHOCK, students tackle the tortures of invention in academic writing by analyzing how writers in the past invented entire futures, not out of thin air, but based on what they saw in the present. This course positions writing as a means of using and reusing the texts we encounter around us and the experiences in which we find them as sources of creativity. In class we’ll draw inspiration from future-focused genres like cyberpunk media and industrial music, and we’ll get tips from unlikely sources like mail art, graffiti, computer hacking, and more. In individual semester projects, students will write manifestos, reviews, genre analyses, an argumentative essay, and more as they develop a low-stakes, personal interest into a topic fit for an academic research project. Students will support their individual development by collaborating in small crews to learn rhetorical awareness, genre familiarity, and research techniques by observing and entering online communities like Reddit, Twitch, and Discord. Additionally, three non-academic experts will visit the class to discuss how they excel in the worlds of videography, beat-making/sampling, and web design by using and reusing the same writing and research skills we’ll be working with in class.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Benson, Schuler
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Ever wanted to be a detective? From crime novels to procedural TV and true crime podcasts, forensic description teaches us how to observe and produce 'objectivity' and truth for entertainment. How does forensic thinking enhance our storytelling and inform our engagement with our everyday surroundings? Why are forensic techniques so fascinating and what are the social implications of our fascination with them? By investigating rhetorical uses of forensic description, we will critically reflect on how different kinds of writing can create truth and the assumption that forensic procedures necessarily yield justice. We will examine texts across popular culture, crime fiction, forensic science, criminology, philosophy, literary theory and the history of medicine. Using forensic tools and concepts, we will critically reflect on how fact-making and storytelling work together in writing. During the semester, students will assemble a case file and try to solve the mystery of themselves as writers. Other assignments will include an academic essay, personal narrative and formal presentation that emphasizes visual storytelling. By connecting forensics with different genres and audiences, and through drafting, peer review and revision, students will develop their process and agility as thinkers and writers.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Ever wanted to be a detective? From crime novels to procedural TV and true crime podcasts, forensic description teaches us how to observe and produce 'objectivity' and truth for entertainment. How does forensic thinking enhance our storytelling and inform our engagement with our everyday surroundings? Why are forensic techniques so fascinating and what are the social implications of our fascination with them? By investigating rhetorical uses of forensic description, we will critically reflect on how different kinds of writing can create truth and the assumption that forensic procedures necessarily yield justice. We will examine texts across popular culture, crime fiction, forensic science, criminology, philosophy, literary theory and the history of medicine. Using forensic tools and concepts, we will critically reflect on how fact-making and storytelling work together in writing. During the semester, students will assemble a case file and try to solve the mystery of themselves as writers. Other assignments will include an academic essay, personal narrative and formal presentation that emphasizes visual storytelling. By connecting forensics with different genres and audiences, and through drafting, peer review and revision, students will develop their process and agility as thinkers and writers.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In Spring 2015 a young Black man from Baltimore named Freddie Gray died while in police custody. His death sparked days of mass protest, marching, property destruction, and clashes with police. While national media called these events a “riot”, local Baltimoreans still call this an “uprising” against discriminatory policing. Whichever label is used, this was not the first combination of political protest, property destruction, and violence in Baltimore’s history. In fact, such events have been continuous since 1812, as Baltimoreans have attacked politicians, police, and each other all often in the name of defending their “democracy” itself. By thinking about this history on the ten year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death, students will explore their answers to fundamental questions about the relationship between violence and democracy in Baltimore: what is at stake in defining rioting as different from an uprising? Does the violence of rioting always make it undemocratic? Have white and Black Baltimoreans over time rioted differently or over similar causes? In finding their answers, students will practice through a variety of writing genres summarizing academic sources and joining an academic conversation, analyzing historical and contemporary images of rioting, and finally, produce their own art gallery for the Baltimore public at large to engage with these questions. Students will learn to use writing then not only as a way to make meaning from contentious and complicated events, but also to communicate the many different, competing, and radical ways Baltimore’s past continues to impact its present.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Lester, Quinn A
• Room: Bloomberg 178
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In Spring 2015 a young Black man from Baltimore named Freddie Gray died while in police custody. His death sparked days of mass protest, marching, property destruction, and clashes with police. While national media called these events a “riot”, local Baltimoreans still call this an “uprising” against discriminatory policing. Whichever label is used, this was not the first combination of political protest, property destruction, and violence in Baltimore’s history. In fact, such events have been continuous since 1812, as Baltimoreans have attacked politicians, police, and each other all often in the name of defending their “democracy” itself. By thinking about this history on the ten year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death, students will explore their answers to fundamental questions about the relationship between violence and democracy in Baltimore: what is at stake in defining rioting as different from an uprising? Does the violence of rioting always make it undemocratic? Have white and Black Baltimoreans over time rioted differently or over similar causes? In finding their answers, students will practice through a variety of writing genres summarizing academic sources and joining an academic conversation, analyzing historical and contemporary images of rioting, and finally, produce their own art gallery for the Baltimore public at large to engage with these questions. Students will learn to use writing then not only as a way to make meaning from contentious and complicated events, but also to communicate the many different, competing, and radical ways Baltimore’s past continues to impact its present.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Lester, Quinn A
• Room:  
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music *does* go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through the world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll be listening to and writing about a wide collection of music written about endings and apocalypses. As the semester unfolds, we'll be given opportunities to contribute musical selections to a running playlist of Apocalyptic Music. You'll have the freedom to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, or both, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing or an original set of lyrics supported by an artist's statement. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay in which you'll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient them toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This course invites you to analyze form in writing, genre and narrative style. Defined as the geological age in which human activity is the dominant influence on the environment, the Anthropocene is the age of climate change. Cyborgs in the popular imagination are human-like machines. This course takes a step back. We meander through forests, homes, labs, and stock markets. Delving deep into human and non-human entanglements we introduce another category of cyborgs i.e., dogs, plants, pharmaceuticals, data, and fungi, into our viewfinder. We analyze ideas from the environmental humanities to creatively open out our durable ideas of climate change as a human-centric phenomenon and cyborgs as human-like machines. Following anthropologists, gardeners and filmmakers we read ethnographic stories, fiction, and film. We will ask, What dogs, plants and fungi teach us about the Anthropocene? How might we rethink climate change by expanding our ideas of the Anthropocene and cyborgs? Our tools will be writing, crafting, drawing and in-class dog meetups. You do not need prior training, just a willingness to co-learn new skills. We develop three genres- ethnographic narrative, memoir, and advocacy writing. Geared towards different audiences these genres enable us to develop a toolkit for writing in and beyond the classroom. Are you ready?

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Menezes, Benita Maria
• Room:  
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Many of us have (at least) two selves: an analog or “real-life” self and a digital self. These doppelgangers can bear striking resemblance to our embodied selves—or not—and raise many questions around issues of representation, authenticity, and impersonation. So too, we leave digital traces of ourselves in the form of “data doubles,” extracted through clicks, scrolls, and other forms of tracked data. This double is frequently a target for manipulation and persuasion, but also can be a tool to enhance creativity and efficiency in our analog lives. In this course, we will investigate the concept of the digital doppelganger from three distinct perspectives, asking how our capacious digital identities are formed, changed, and controlled in commercial, political, and creative contexts. By crafting auto-ethnographies, policy briefs, and creative computational projects, students will develop critical thinking skills, learn to communicate with agility and precision across different genres, and reflect on how we create and know ourselves in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Schnitzler, Carly Elisabeth
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music *does* go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through the world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll be listening to and writing about a wide collection of music written about endings and apocalypses. As the semester unfolds, we'll be given opportunities to contribute musical selections to a running playlist of Apocalyptic Music. You'll have the freedom to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, or both, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing or an original set of lyrics supported by an artist's statement. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay in which you'll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient them toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

What is Hollywood’s—and our—fascination with robbery? Challenging assumptions about criminality, justice and injustice, the heist (or ‘caper’) film makes theft into a subversive art form, a creative collaboration between a team of experts trying to pull off something extraordinary. We will study the history of this highly flexible genre to consider: Who are the bad guys? What is robbery? Why do we root for these characters, and why do we find it so enjoyable to watch them fail? These are some of the questions we will explore in “Reintroduction to Writing: The Heist Film,” a first-year writing course that asks us to think about how popular genres like the “caper” function as both escapist fantasy and social commentary. Through writing assignments that include argumentative essays, film reviews, and a creative project, students will also develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they examine the history and conventions of the heist film. At the end of the semester, students will use their knowledge of the genre to plan their own heist narrative: a creative research project that uses our university campus as the setting for a daring robbery.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Cram, Mitchell Allan
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In a 2012 New York Times interview critic Steven Greenblatt referred to literature as “the most astonishing technological means that human beings have created, and now practiced for thousands of years, to capture experience.” In contrast, focusing on his own specific literary practice, W.H. Auden famously said “poetry makes nothing happen.” So which one has it right? In this class we’ll focus on whether poetry serves any purpose in society, and if so what, and why. As a means of helping answer this question we’ll also consider whether there’s such a thing as a poetry community, and who belongs to it, as well as how the enjoyment of poetry through close reading might help us decide whether poetry has any bearing on people’s lives. We’ll attend and review a poetry reading, interview local poets, look at books and magazines where poetry appears, engage with critics, write short essays that help fellow readers appreciate poems we find striking, and in the process gain a deeper and richer understanding of what this art form is all about. Members of the class must be able to attend one local live poetry reading outside of class.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Berger, Donald W
• Room: Gilman 313
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

To imagine is to construct something that is not real—to play, create, hypothesize. To do research is to engage in, as Zora Neale Hurston put it, “formalized curiosity.” And to write is to think, learn, discover, and act. This course explores the nature of writing, imagination, and research in situ: here on campus, at the Baltimore Museum of Art next door, and in Sheridan Libraries Special Collections. Throughout, we’ll read closely and write broadly, for different audiences and purposes. Our sources will include visual, aural, and written texts. For example, we’ll study the Antioch mosaics and Simone Leigh’s Meredith at the BMA. We’ll read scholarship and public-facing work by Hopkins faculty in neuroscience, astronomy, sociology, classics, and beyond, and we’ll explore the Hinkes Collection of Scientific Discovery. Students will write reflections, literacy narratives, academic arguments, and op-ed essays, and more. As in all Reintro courses, students will work towards becoming agile writers who understand writing as a social habit, an intellectual practice, and a way to make things happen in the world.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Brodsky, Anne-Elizabeth Murdy
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

To imagine is to construct something that is not real—to play, create, hypothesize. To do research is to engage in, as Zora Neale Hurston put it, “formalized curiosity.” And to write is to think, learn, discover, and act. This course explores the nature of writing, imagination, and research in situ: here on campus, at the Baltimore Museum of Art next door, and in Sheridan Libraries Special Collections. Throughout, we’ll read closely and write broadly, for different audiences and purposes. Our sources will include visual, aural, and written texts. For example, we’ll study the Antioch mosaics and Simone Leigh’s Meredith at the BMA. We’ll read scholarship and public-facing work by Hopkins faculty in neuroscience, astronomy, sociology, classics, and beyond, and we’ll explore the Hinkes Collection of Scientific Discovery. Students will write reflections, literacy narratives, academic arguments, and op-ed essays, and more. As in all Reintro courses, students will work towards becoming agile writers who understand writing as a social habit, an intellectual practice, and a way to make things happen in the world.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Brodsky, Anne-Elizabeth Murdy
• Room: Gilman 4
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Who (or what) speaks? Humans are increasingly thinking about their relationship with nonhumans, ranging from AI to nonhuman animals to corporations, including whether some nonhumans can or should be said to speak. AI speech can be mistaken for human speech, though it is commonly thought not to have meaning or intention in the same way. Researchers are increasingly turning to AI to try to decode the communications of nonhuman animals and raising the possibility that some nonhuman animals, such as sperm whales, may be said to use language not unlike we do. Corporations in the United States have legal personhood, which includes the right to free speech. This class will query how we should interpret nonhuman “speech.” How do we recognize speakers, and according to what criteria? What is the relationship between speech and rights? And how does nonhuman speech change our understanding of how we create meaning and connection with one another? Writing will be at the heart of our class. Across a series of writing assignments, we will study and write in multiple genres, including scholarly arguments, personal narratives, proposals, and reflections. Throughout the course, we will explore connections between nonhuman speech and our own.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: O'Connor, Marisa T
• Room: Gilman 4
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Revision describes the development of a text into a new (potentially improved) form. This class explores the concept of revision not only in a writing context but also in terms of the ways our identities or beliefs can shift over time, with the help of writing, reading, research, and collaboration. College can be an important time of reflecting on who we are, perhaps revising earlier “drafts” of ourselves; for this reason, we’ll discuss writing for internal purposes, such as: (a) writing to explore one’s thinking and access one’s internal rhetoric (self-talk) for self-understanding, potentially working to revise certain detrimental patterns of thinking, and (b) expressive writing as an intervention in healthcare and counselling contexts. As we shift to focus on external purposes for writing, we will consider how writing choices shift depending on our target audience and the change/revision we hope our text might bring about in the world. Students will learn effective ways to help other writers revise their writing, and how to best utilize feedback from others during revision. Students will explore the many meanings of revision as they work on informal journals, a narrative argument essay, a research-based paper, and a multimodal revision project.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Goransson, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Competing views about the dangers and potential benefits of drugs are ubiquitous. In the context of changing drug laws regarding psychedelic medicines, the legalization of cannabis, and “mandatory minimum” jail sentences, how can we gain insight into the cultural history of drugs in our society? This writing course will provide the opportunity for students to directly engage with recent debates over drug legislation by critically reflecting on the evolution of writing about drugs over the past 250 years. How does the cultural understanding of drugs change with shifts in rhetoric? How can we balance the need to protect society while still respecting individual freedoms and privacy? How can the latest scientific and sociological research help to guide legislative decisions? Our society’s understandings about drugs and their relationship to human consciousness have been—and continue to be—mediated by rhetoric and public discussions. By directly engaging in this evolving rhetoric through written and oral assignments, students will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of this complex and persistent topic. Students will explore this topic by writing in a variety of genres and persuasive strategies, including op-eds, policy memos, close textual and visual analyses, and reflections.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Devenot, Nese Lisa
• Room: Ames 320
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

What is Hollywood’s—and our—fascination with robbery? Challenging assumptions about criminality, justice and injustice, the heist (or ‘caper’) film makes theft into a subversive art form, a creative collaboration between a team of experts trying to pull off something extraordinary. We will study the history of this highly flexible genre to consider: Who are the bad guys? What is robbery? Why do we root for these characters, and why do we find it so enjoyable to watch them fail? These are some of the questions we will explore in “Reintroduction to Writing: The Heist Film,” a first-year writing course that asks us to think about how popular genres like the “caper” function as both escapist fantasy and social commentary. Through writing assignments that include argumentative essays, film reviews, and a creative project, students will also develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they examine the history and conventions of the heist film. At the end of the semester, students will use their knowledge of the genre to plan their own heist narrative: a creative research project that uses our university campus as the setting for a daring robbery.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Cram, Mitchell Allan
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Ever wonder about the choices made in creating the panels, characters, and text bubbles in comics? In this course, you'll study, create, and write about comics as a way to examine audience, text, and message – revealing some of the magic of comics. We'll read The 9/11 Report in two different forms, for example, and discuss translating the 900+ page government report into a comic for popular consumption. We’ll learn about women creators, like Jackie Ormes, the first African-American woman cartoonist. We'll read the now-classic graphic memoir Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and analyze the advantages of telling the history of the Iranian Revolution from the point of view of a child. And more! In addition to writing in various genres, students will curate an online exhibition of their top comics for display at the end of the semester. This course is for you if: you care about how history is communicated to the public; you wonder about the interplay between text and image; you like to doodle; you want to see your story in comics. No drawing skills necessary. Although we will create comics as part of assignments, you will not be assessed on your art talent or abilities.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

The phrase "a seat at the table" is often used to describe an instance where someone is included in an opportunity that has the potential to lead them to some form of success. The symbolism of pulling up a chair to a table represents a sense of belonging and inclusion that wasn’t extended previously for one reason or another. What happens when you get “a seat” that you’ve pursued for a long time? This course asks you to engage with feelings of inclusion/exclusion by drawing from your own experiences of negotiating and fighting for your seat. One way to think about this is to consider how your potential major (or careers relating to your potential major) relate to your body and how you are expected to exist in these spaces. In these moments of expectation, what are you willing to give? What is an acceptable cost (changing how you dress, talk, think, etc.) for your success? How can you fight to protect yourself and be successful? Is it possible to do both? Students can expect to explore these important questions via scaffolded writing activities which support the major assignments: rhetorical analysis essay, literature review, and research-based argument essay.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Hull, Brittany Sabrina
• Room: Bloomberg 178
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

As young children, we delight in puns, rhymes, and nonsense words, but most suppress this tendency as adults, associating such wordplay with a lack of seriousness and maturity. The purpose of this course is to push back against this assumption and rejuvenate our writing practice with a sense of play and fun. We’ll read and write in a variety of forms and for a variety of audiences: we’ll enter an academic conversation about the role of language games in diverse cultures, ancient and modern; we’ll read and respond to personal essays about pun competitions, Scrabble tournaments, and dysfunctional French classrooms; we’ll engage in hands-on linguistic revelry with authors like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Queneau; and we’ll spend time in Sheridan Libraries’ Special Collections, handling old and rare books, manuscripts, and visual materials. In the end, we’ll arrive at a better understanding of how playing with words can develop our confidence and engagement as writers and thinkers, both in college and for the rest of our lives.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Essam, Richard James Llewellyn
• Room: Bloomberg 178
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

How do we visualize and analyze a city? This course explores Baltimore’s spaces, histories, and communities through digital mapping, media analysis, and multimodal composition. Students will investigate how the built environment, cultural narratives, and historical forces shape urban life, using writing and digital media as tools for inquiry. Working in small teams, students will research and produce a short documentary-style video featuring a Baltimore community or nonprofit. Their work will contribute to a collaborative digital map, creating a shared representation of the city’s cultural and historical assets. Throughout the semester, students will develop skills in video production, interactive mapping, and data visualization, experimenting with different media forms to examine Baltimore’s complexities. They will use spatial mapping, sound recording, and digital research to uncover patterns, frame inquiries, and translate findings into compelling projects. By semester’s end, students will have produced a team-based, research-driven video and contributed to a shared digital map, gaining experience in multimodal composition, ethical representation, and digital media.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Fusilier, Lauren
• Room: Ames 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

There’s no question that much of our public discourse contains speech that can be regarded as false, worthless, and hateful. In these ways speech can produce real harm to individuals and society. Why then do we intuitively feel that it is important to protect speech to the maximum extent? That’s the large question we will address through a series of writing projects. We begin by reading John Stuart Mill’s canonical justification of free speech in his nineteenth century treatise On Liberty. You write a short piece that engages with Mill’s view that speech is essential to the pursuit of truth. We then shift focus to the law, to get a sense of how the law defines the pivotal difference between speech and action. You’ll write an argumentative essay that enters a conversation about how we should respond to hateful speech. For the final assignment you are invited to research a contemporary free speech issue that interests you. Using online resources like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), you will map a particular controversy and produce a written report of your findings, including the option to publicly intervene in the controversy by writing a letter or an opinion piece.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Revision describes the development of a text into a new (potentially improved) form. This class explores the concept of revision not only in a writing context but also in terms of the ways our identities or beliefs can shift over time, with the help of writing, reading, research, and collaboration. College can be an important time of reflecting on who we are, perhaps revising earlier “drafts” of ourselves; for this reason, we’ll discuss writing for internal purposes, such as: (a) writing to explore one’s thinking and access one’s internal rhetoric (self-talk) for self-understanding, potentially working to revise certain detrimental patterns of thinking, and (b) expressive writing as an intervention in healthcare and counselling contexts. As we shift to focus on external purposes for writing, we will consider how writing choices shift depending on our target audience and the change/revision we hope our text might bring about in the world. Students will learn effective ways to help other writers revise their writing, and how to best utilize feedback from others during revision. Students will explore the many meanings of revision as they work on informal journals, a narrative argument essay, a research-based paper, and a multimodal revision project.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Goransson, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Undergraduates at Hopkins often bemoan what they call the “Hopkins Bubble”—an invisible boundary that separates life on campus from the “real” world. Such sentiments, however, run counter to Hopkins’ mission to produce “knowledge for the world” and its appeals for students to think of Baltimore as an “extension of campus.” Through critical reading and personal reflection, students will probe their experiences of campus life and Baltimore. We’ll craft orientation guides that map new ways of thinking about the relationship between Hopkins and Baltimore. We’ll collaborate with the University Archives and write an academic essay exploring themes such as: how have past students fought for inclusion in the Hopkins community, how have student activists encouraged Hopkins to be more fully engaged in the larger community, and how have the boundaries between Hopkins and Baltimore shifted over time? We’ll share what we’ve learned with public audiences by writing a call-to-action that probes the divisions between Hopkins and the city. Throughout the semester, we will also consider the ways that practice of writing itself asks us to think critically about how we imagine, enact, and engage with community, and therefore informs our work to trouble the Hopkins Bubble.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: Maryland 201
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

As young children, we delight in puns, rhymes, and nonsense words, but most suppress this tendency as adults, associating such wordplay with a lack of seriousness and maturity. The purpose of this course is to push back against this assumption and rejuvenate our writing practice with a sense of play and fun. We’ll read and write in a variety of forms and for a variety of audiences: we’ll enter an academic conversation about the role of language games in diverse cultures, ancient and modern; we’ll read and respond to personal essays about pun competitions, Scrabble tournaments, and dysfunctional French classrooms; we’ll engage in hands-on linguistic revelry with authors like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Queneau; and we’ll spend time in Sheridan Libraries’ Special Collections, handling old and rare books, manuscripts, and visual materials. In the end, we’ll arrive at a better understanding of how playing with words can develop our confidence and engagement as writers and thinkers, both in college and for the rest of our lives.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Essam, Richard James Llewellyn
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

How do we visualize and analyze a city? This course explores Baltimore’s spaces, histories, and communities through digital mapping, media analysis, and multimodal composition. Students will investigate how the built environment, cultural narratives, and historical forces shape urban life, using writing and digital media as tools for inquiry. Working in small teams, students will research and produce a short documentary-style video featuring a Baltimore community or nonprofit. Their work will contribute to a collaborative digital map, creating a shared representation of the city’s cultural and historical assets. Throughout the semester, students will develop skills in video production, interactive mapping, and data visualization, experimenting with different media forms to examine Baltimore’s complexities. They will use spatial mapping, sound recording, and digital research to uncover patterns, frame inquiries, and translate findings into compelling projects. By semester’s end, students will have produced a team-based, research-driven video and contributed to a shared digital map, gaining experience in multimodal composition, ethical representation, and digital media.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Fusilier, Lauren
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Baltimore is often called “a city of neighborhoods.” Indeed, the city boasts more than 250 neighborhoods with varying architectural styles, atmospheres, and levels of access to city services. That the people who live in these areas often proudly represent them is testament to the enduring importance of curated, physical spaces at a time when so much seems to depend on digital environments. This course encourages attention to our human-made surroundings—campus and dormitory buildings, public parks, transportation systems, etc.—by considering ways people have written and thought about the built environment and through our own investigations into Baltimore’s built environment. Our aim is not only to become more familiar with Baltimore and the effects of human design but also to recognize the presence of the built environment in writing, to better appreciate how it serves as a basis of inquiry and a source of creativity for journalists, novelists, and scholars alike. Together, we will reflect on how the built environment can shape our writing practices beyond simply providing an occasion for description. This course includes several field trips to nearby neighborhoods in Baltimore. The final project provides an opportunity concentrate on one aspect of the built environment of Baltimore or another location of interest.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Loftis, Cameron Jalayer
• Room: Maryland 114
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

What is at risk when we create space for justice in an unjust world? This course invites students to explore writing as both a means of personal expression and a tool for social intervention. Through storytelling, analysis, and research, we will examine how writers respond to systems of inequality, including racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and more, and how language itself can resist or reinforce those systems. Students will engage with essays, protest literature, digital activism, and public discourse to investigate how writing shapes not only power, but also possibilities for liberation. As students develop their own voices, they will also build foundational skills in academic writing, including critical reading, rhetorical analysis, and research-based argumentation. Projects will include a personal narrative about students’ relationships to social justice, a rhetorical analysis of a public text or movement, and a researched argument on a contemporary issue of their choice. Throughout the course, students will practice writing rooted in reflection, revision, and community accountability, while strengthening their ability to write with clarity, purpose, and audience awareness. Through peer collaboration and feedback, we’ll interrogate what we want to say, who we’re speaking for, with, and to, and what is at stake when we do.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Blackmon, Codi Renee Renee
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

What is at risk when we create space for justice in an unjust world? This course invites students to explore writing as both a means of personal expression and a tool for social intervention. Through storytelling, analysis, and research, we will examine how writers respond to systems of inequality, including racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and more, and how language itself can resist or reinforce those systems. Students will engage with essays, protest literature, digital activism, and public discourse to investigate how writing shapes not only power, but also possibilities for liberation. As students develop their own voices, they will also build foundational skills in academic writing, including critical reading, rhetorical analysis, and research-based argumentation. Projects will include a personal narrative about students’ relationships to social justice, a rhetorical analysis of a public text or movement, and a researched argument on a contemporary issue of their choice. Throughout the course, students will practice writing rooted in reflection, revision, and community accountability, while strengthening their ability to write with clarity, purpose, and audience awareness. Through peer collaboration and feedback, we’ll interrogate what we want to say, who we’re speaking for, with, and to, and what is at stake when we do.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Blackmon, Codi Renee Renee
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This course invites art-curious students to rewrite the material histories of art objects and museums. We will explore hidden narratives and overlooked traditions in art history, non-visual senses and experiences of art making, and the role of reinvention in art museums. Over the semester, we will examine and respond to a range of objects, performances, and writings that think through the public “matter” of art. Course discussion and writing projects will pay special attention to questions of what it means to make and practice a socially engaged art. We will approach writing as both a personal and a social project. We will concentrate on the personal aspects of writing--including expression, habit, transfer--as well as the social aspects of writing—including exploration, persuasion, and convention. This course is site specific. The Baltimore Museum of Art will serve as our archive and object of study.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J.
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

How do we communicate bodily pain? Who gets to tell health stories, and who is represented in those stories? This course explores health and illness, beyond medical histories and clinical data, by centering human experiences of illness as depicted through narratives. These narratives are shaped by people’s identities, cultures, politics, etc. Our goal is to humanize complex medical realities through health narratives. To achieve this goal, we will focus on reading and writing health narratives across multiple genres and media. Throughout the semester, you will analyze health narratives like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Something the Lord Made, The Wounded Storyteller, and When Breath Becomes Air, as we reflect on the ethics of writing illness, writing as a mode of healing, resistance, and meaning-making. You will write personal health narratives, reflective essays, analytical pieces, and design graphic health narratives, aiming for healthcare advocacy, engagement, and building connections. Whether you come to this course as an advocate, an aspiring healthcare provider, or someone with a story, you’ll be invited to answer these questions: What does it mean to write about the body? What stories about ailing bodies demand telling? How can writing become a space for agency, resistance, or care?

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

How do we communicate bodily pain? Who gets to tell health stories, and who is represented in those stories? This course explores health and illness, beyond medical histories and clinical data, by centering human experiences of illness as depicted through narratives. These narratives are shaped by people’s identities, cultures, politics, etc. Our goal is to humanize complex medical realities through health narratives. To achieve this goal, we will focus on reading and writing health narratives across multiple genres and media. Throughout the semester, you will analyze health narratives like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Something the Lord Made, The Wounded Storyteller, and When Breath Becomes Air, as we reflect on the ethics of writing illness, writing as a mode of healing, resistance, and meaning-making. You will write personal health narratives, reflective essays, analytical pieces, and design graphic health narratives, aiming for healthcare advocacy, engagement, and building connections. Whether you come to this course as an advocate, an aspiring healthcare provider, or someone with a story, you’ll be invited to answer these questions: What does it mean to write about the body? What stories about ailing bodies demand telling? How can writing become a space for agency, resistance, or care?

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 313
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

For years, “The American Dream” has been a part of the national discourse. Today, however, many American residents complain that the American dream is dead: that the values of democracy, economic opportunity, and personal freedom that are central to the Dream no longer hold. This writing course will investigate this tension and interrogate various aspects of the American Dream—a process that will help students to better understand the connection between writing and dreaming. Over the course of the semester, students will produce three major writing assignments and multiple smaller weekly assignments. These assignments will cover a range of genres, including personal narratives, academic essays, and more.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Wellington, Shalima Z
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

Many of our favorite books have been adapted for the big screen, and some of these adaptations have been remarkably successful. But what happens when a written text is turned into a film? How does it change the way we think about the original? And how can we tell if a film is a successful adaptation of the original text? This writing course will explore these questions by focusing on cinematic adaptations of popular Victorian narratives, including Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and the Sherlock Holmes stories. Through a series of writing assignments, including an academic essay, a film review, and an op-ed, students will consider why we keep retelling new versions of old stories, and how the movement from text to film allows viewers to think about these stories in new ways. Students will work toward a final argumentative essay that synthesizes the texts and themes explored over the course of the semester. The writing assignments, combined with a series of in-class workshops and peer reviews, will encourage students to engage with audiences beyond the classroom and help them to become more agile writers.

• Days/Times: MW 8:30AM - 9:45AM
• Instructor: Yoo, Jungmin
• Room: Gilman 10
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

The idea of the gene existed before we figured out the structure of DNA and its role in cells. So, what happens when you take an old idea and put it on something new? This is what we will be exploring in this section of Reintroduction to Writing. In addition to reading about the rhetorical and chemical composition of genes and DNA, we will explore the question of genetically modified organisms, investigate the origins and materiality of diseases, and explore our contemporary notion of identity. In addition to researching the genealogy of a gene, students will also have the opportunity to conduct genetic experiments in a lab and hunt for new genes in the world around us. Students will be required to produce writing that is appropriate to their field of study, as well as texts that are public facing. By the end of the class, students will understand how our discourses on genetics shape our relationship to DNA and ourselves.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Ludden, Jason
• Room: Gilman 75
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

February 2023 data from the National Vital Statistics System states that maternal mortality rates decreased significantly per 100,000 births for White (14.5) and Hispanic women (12.4), and stayed the same for Black mothers (50.3) in the United States. In this first-year writing course, students will explore the history of home births, the medicalization of childbirths, alongside the foundations of American gynecology. Through course readings, discussions, research, and community engagement students will seek to understand the current role institutions, community organizations, future medical practitioners, and public health workers like themselves play in improving maternal mortality rates. Students will write in a range of genres including fact sheets, personal narratives, and profile essays, which will allow students to follow a course of inquiry that will lead them to a point of interest to compose a traditional academic paper, multimodal composition or public facing writing as their final project. Students will support their research questions by using credible sources such as narratives, scholarly articles, and reputed journalism. Potential texts include excerpts by Margaret Charles Smith, Onnie Lee Logan, Tressie Cottom, Nikky Finney, Serena Williams, Allyson Felix, Beyonce, and other maternal health scholars, researchers, and advocates.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Bloomberg 276
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In Spring 2015 a young Black man from Baltimore named Freddie Gray died while in police custody. His death sparked days of mass protest, marching, property destruction, and clashes with police. While national media called these events a “riot”, local Baltimoreans still call this an “uprising” against discriminatory policing. Whichever label is used, this was not the first combination of political protest, property destruction, and violence in Baltimore’s history. In fact, such events have been continuous since 1812, as Baltimoreans have attacked politicians, police, and each other all often in the name of defending their “democracy” itself. By thinking about this history on the ten year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death, students will explore their answers to fundamental questions about the relationship between violence and democracy in Baltimore: what is at stake in defining rioting as different from an uprising? Does the violence of rioting always make it undemocratic? Have white and Black Baltimoreans over time rioted differently or over similar causes? In finding their answers, students will practice through a variety of writing genres summarizing academic sources and joining an academic conversation, analyzing historical and contemporary images of rioting, and finally, produce their own art gallery for the Baltimore public at large to engage with these questions. Students will learn to use writing then not only as a way to make meaning from contentious and complicated events, but also to communicate the many different, competing, and radical ways Baltimore’s past continues to impact its present.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Lester, Quinn A
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This course invites you to analyze form in writing, genre and narrative style. Defined as the geological age in which human activity is the dominant influence on the environment, the Anthropocene is the age of climate change. Cyborgs in the popular imagination are human-like machines. This course takes a step back. We meander through forests, homes, labs, and stock markets. Delving deep into human and non-human entanglements we introduce another category of cyborgs i.e., dogs, plants, pharmaceuticals, data, and fungi, into our viewfinder. We analyze ideas from the environmental humanities to creatively open out our durable ideas of climate change as a human-centric phenomenon and cyborgs as human-like machines. Following anthropologists, gardeners and filmmakers we read ethnographic stories, fiction, and film. We will ask, What dogs, plants and fungi teach us about the Anthropocene? How might we rethink climate change by expanding our ideas of the Anthropocene and cyborgs? Our tools will be writing, crafting, drawing and in-class dog meetups. You do not need prior training, just a willingness to co-learn new skills. We develop three genres- ethnographic narrative, memoir, and advocacy writing. Geared towards different audiences these genres enable us to develop a toolkit for writing in and beyond the classroom. Are you ready?

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Menezes, Benita Maria
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music *does* go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through the world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll be listening to and writing about a wide collection of music written about endings and apocalypses. As the semester unfolds, we'll be given opportunities to contribute musical selections to a running playlist of Apocalyptic Music. You'll have the freedom to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, or both, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing or an original set of lyrics supported by an artist's statement. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay in which you'll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient them toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room:  
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

According to the Oxford Dictionary, professional is defined as “a person engaged or qualified in a profession.” In this advanced speaking and writing course, students will engage in a semester-long research project to examine definitions of professionalism across a variety of disciplines and contexts. Students will research to question, what goes into creating standards, and what-and who -- do they serve? For instance, when a 17-year-old at Banana Republic is asked to remove her box braids to avoid “looking urban;” or a trans employee is fired for violating a nebulous dress code; are these examples of larger issues of dominant cultural biases concerning the concept of “professionalism” in the workplace? Through course readings, library sources, and primary research, this course questions if employers and institutions establish specific standards that draw a line between those who are a “good fit” and those who are not. Students will compose a research proposal/presentation, creative genre modes assignment, and final presentation with visual aids to interrogate questions like: How does the dominant culture define professionalism? How do those definitions change depending on discipline and context? How do concepts of professionalism influence/affect intersectionality? All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Hull, Brittany Sabrina
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For survivors of the worst atrocities in recent history, remembering is seen as both a moral and political duty. The command to “never forget” has become a popular refrain in the aftermath of these traumatic events. But how should the memory of these mass traumas be carried forward in the public sphere? What forms of commemoration are the most effective, accurate, or enduring? And how might new technologies impact how we remember collective traumas in the future? Using the Holocaust as our central case study, we’ll examine the remembering of trauma in a range of public “memory sites,” including oral testimonies, memoirs, photographs, monuments, and museums. And we’ll discuss how new technologies, including virtual reality and holographic technology, will impact Holocaust memory going forward. At the heart of the course will be a series of writing assignments designed to help students reflect on the future of Holocaust memory. Students will be asked to write in a variety of styles and genres, from op-eds to scholarly arguments, and from video essays to rhetorical analyses. These writing assignments will help students reconsider what writing is, how to do it effectively and ethically, and how to become better at it. The class will include field trips to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Wexler, Anthony Charles
• Room: Maryland 104
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, is the beating heart of political life. In a democracy, we listen to rational arguments presented in good faith, but we are also exposed to deceptive forms of persuasion that attempt to mislead us through misinformation and other techniques of propaganda. Democratic citizens today need to utilize persuasive techniques to advance their political goals. But they also need to be alert to the perils of certain forms of persuasion that may even threaten democracy itself. This course will help students develop the rhetorical literacy capable of meeting these demands. We begin by studying the classical forms of rhetoric – including ethos, pathos, and logos -- as outlined by Aristotle and illustrated by some classic political speeches from the past and present. You’ll then compose, present, revise, and reflect on a short political speech of your own. Thus grounded, our attention turns to the multiple ways in which persuasion is deployed in a democracy today. Whether it’s a campaign speech, a debate, an effort from an activist group to engage the community through social media, or a rant by your favorite YouTuber, we are now exposed to more competing voices and images than ever before. Is it possible for a rational consensus to emerge from the cacophony of speech unleashed in the digital age? Your next project, an argumentative essay, will address this question. Finally, you will design and produce a persuasive piece of political writing – which may incorporate visual components -- targeted to a specific audience on a topic of your choice.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Maryland 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A one credit course orienting potential writing center tutors to the history, theory, and practice of tutoring writing. This course is for undergraduates who have applied to work as Writing Center tutors. Permission required.

• Days/Times: W 5:00PM - 6:50PM
• Instructor: Vinyard, Deirdre Will
• Room: Croft Hall B32
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 8/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Science in Situ introduces students to the art of science writing via an exploration of the sites where science is happening in Baltimore. Effective science communicators have a deep understanding of their subject matter and are skilled at conveying complex ideas in accessible ways. However, explaining the facts is not enough; science writers also need to make meaning out of information by placing it in social and narrative contexts that are relevant to their audience. This course encourages students to write creatively, with humor, and in multimedia formats to communicate scientific content to a wide range of audiences. Students will learn about key techniques as well as challenges in science journalism and gain practice communicating technical subject matter in a variety of modalities. Through field trips to local museums and forensic labs, and interviews with researchers and editors of science magazines, students will identify opportunities to share their ideas and knowledge in engaging ways, and to reflect on why science matters to broader audiences. This course is aimed at junior and senior undergraduate students who are STEM majors. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Thyagarajan, Sunita; Wilbanks, Rebecca
• Room: Croft Hall B32
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/18
• PosTag(s): BEHB-SOCSCI

This is an interdisciplinary course blending the study of visual and textual narrative, history, ethics, medicine, and war studies. We will explore various genres as we survey how care – medical, psychiatric, and nursing – has changed during wartime over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an emphasis on the narratives written by and about nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, field medics, orderlies, chaplains, ambulance drivers, and doctors in the conflicts. Though this is a survey, nurses will be our primary focus. We will examine how politics infiltrates the war hospital and affects care; the changing dynamic of women and men in the medical (and battle) field throughout the twentieth century; the innovations that emerged from battle surgery; humanitarian concerns on the front line where friend and foe are blurred; and more. Texts will include but not be limited to film, sitcom, novels, memoirs, letters, diary entries, posters, and poetry. We will use the critical lenses of gender, race, empire, colonialism, and disability to interrogate how medicine and care support – or destabilize! – these concepts in war. Students should expect to write and revise frequently and in a variety of genres throughout the course. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

How are American publishers responding to the use of AI? What's with all of the book banning? Why did “Cat Person” go viral? What’s an earnout bonus? In this class, we’ll look at the world of book publishing, taking a particularly close look at literary controversies, publishing best practices, and the rhetoric of the industry. We’ll read literary work, essays, and journalism related to the book business alongside legislation, school board meeting minutes, and court records to understand what the publishing industry is, how it works, and where it may be headed. In addition to performing and writing research, we’ll meet industry professionals and examine publishing documents like profit and loss requisitions, book contracts, and press releases to familiarize ourselves with the genres used in-house at American publishing houses. Finally, we’ll look at the local publishing ecosystem, which includes academic presses, independent publishers, literary journals and zines, book reviewers, bookstores, reading series, and more. Undergraduates at the sophomore level and above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Brown, Nate
• Room: Wyman Park N105
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

In this class, we will collaborate with the Peale Museum— Baltimore’s community museum—to plan, curate, and host an exhibition. In this partnership we will engage with many modes of writing, including analyzing audience and user experiences; using social media to increase engagement; and creating proposals for immersive events that might connect the past neighborhood struggles to present day community concerns. This course will build on the work of students who participated in Reintro to Writing: Lost Baltimore in Spring-Fall 2024, who researched and wrote about life in a West Baltimore neighborhood that was demolished between 1930s and 1970s. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome. The class is open to all students who have taken any Reintro, but previous participants in the Lost Baltimore Reintro are especially encouraged to enroll.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: Smokler Center 213
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course departs from Patricia Hill Collins' term “motherwork,” which is reproductive labor that blurs the lines between private and public, family and work to ensure the survival of one’s family and collective community. You are invited to reimagine how maternal health, reproductive justice, and birthing justice frameworks intersect with motherwork. February 2023 data from the National Vital Statistics System states that maternal mortality rates decreased significantly per 100,000 births for White (14.5) and Hispanic women (12.4). However, the mortality rate for Black mothers (50.3) in the United States has not improved. How can this data help shift and reshape your imagination around the possibilities of recreating, restructuring, and rebuilding maternal health and reproductive health(care) networks? How can we define and practice maternal health when divisions between communities and institutions are dismantled? Alongside opportunities for community engagement, this space offers future maternal health (care) workers time to center joy through writing projects that follow Angela Davis’ guidance to “act as if it were possible to radically transform the world.” Student writing may include digital projects, policy proposals, autoethnography, films, and podcasts. Potential authors include Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Jennifer Nash, and Moya Bailey. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Bloomberg 276
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

In recent years, media coverage of psychedelic research has fueled widespread enthusiasm, sometimes outpacing the current scientific evidence. While early studies suggest promising therapeutic potential, psychedelics remain an evolving field of research with many unanswered questions about safety, efficacy, and long-term effects. This course explores how to communicate about psychedelic science with clarity, accuracy, and nuance, which involves balancing positive potentials with critical inquiry. In particular, students will analyze how narratives around psychedelics are shaped in journalism, academic literature, and public discourse. We will examine the challenges of writing about emerging science, including the risks of overstating findings, the influences of historical stigma, and the ethical responsibilities of science communicators. Discussions will consider the media's role in shaping public perception, health policy, and the emerging psychedelic industry. By writing across multiple genres including public essays and case studies, students will develop the skills to craft compelling, well-informed pieces tailored to diverse audiences, from general readers to academic and policy communities. Whether you are interested in journalism, science writing, or public health communication, this course provides tools for ethically engaging with complex topics in contemporary science and medicine. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Devenot, Nese Lisa
• Room: Smokler Center Library
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course is for students doing independent research. Course can be taken up to 3 credits with approval from the director.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Wexler, Anthony Charles
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course is grounded in the double conviction that translation is the most intimate form of reading and that literary translation is a form of literary writing. The goals of this course are to better understand the potential and challenge of translation as we learn to practice it ourselves. We will study what translators say about their craft and work closely with a wide range of translations. There will be two parts to each seminar: --discussion of assigned readings and analysis of published translations --workshopping of our translations. Students are free to translate from any language into English. Reading knowledge of a language other than English is required.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jewiss, Virginia C
• Room: Mergenthaler 431
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

When artificial humans too closely resemble human beings, an eerie feeling may arise in human observers - the ‘uncanny valley’ effect. To be avoided in robotics or animation, in literature this effect can fascinate; doubt about the human status of characters can structure entire worlds. If fictional characters are artificial humans, what makes them intelligent? How do they self-reflect? How do we, as human readers, relate to them? Can we relate too closely - but sometimes not enough? What can our relation to fictional characters reveal about our relationship to our reality and selves? In this short course, we will sample two novels by Kazuo Ishiguro; our narrative companions will include a very human butler reminiscing about his service in The Remains of the Day (1989) and an Artificial Friend android in the more recent Klara and the Sun (2021). These novels are effectively diaries kept by the protagonist of each; that is, reflective writing.

• Days/Times: T 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

The Commons is Hopkins’ newest arts and culture magazine, responding to Hopkins’ annual Common Question. Our course will collaboratively design and produce an issue of The Commons over the course of the semester. Composing The Commons takes a hands-on, lab-based approach to writing technologies, media archeology, and accessibility studies. This Humanities Research Lab will examine print and digital media, explore physical and digital archives, and experiment with methods of intermedia composition and translation. Students will write a peer-reviewed article and create photo essays, short stories, poems, games, and print and digital ephemera. Our aim is to publish and translate a well-researched, well-considered magazine in both print and digital formats, for many publics. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J.; Schnitzler, Carly Elisabeth
• Room: Gilman 35
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In leaving home for college, we come to reevaluate the primary—and primal—relationships that define us, often for the first time. How do we understand and reconcile the shaping power of family—a power that can both fortify and confine us? What can family narratives teach us about the formation of individual identity, the many acts of selection inherent to that process and, perhaps, the difference between living and telling? In this Reintroduction to Writing course, we will examine the facts, fables, and frontiers of family as constructed in literature, film and visual art, philosophical and public policy debates, political dynasties, and more. We will write reflections, op-eds, academic essays, and more, always taking care to consider the tether between genre and audience. Throughout our work together, we will identify and practice the fundamental components of ethical analysis and research, and discuss and rehearse writing as an intellectual, relational, and recursive practice essential to and across all disciplines.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Watters, Aliza
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

To imagine is to construct something that is not real—to play, create, hypothesize. To do research is to engage in, as Zora Neale Hurston put it, “formalized curiosity.” And to write is to think, learn, discover, and act. This course explores the nature of writing, imagination, and research in situ: We’ll read the work of JHU faculty, wander and write at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and hold rare books in our hands at Sheridan Libraries’ Hinkes Collection of Scientific Discovery. We’ll read poems by Lucille Clifton and Richard Blanco, listen to interviews with Richard Feynman and Ruha Benjamin, look closely at sculpture by Edgar Degas and Simeon Leigh, and draw on scholarship from economics, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, education, and writing studies. Throughout, we’ll look closely and write broadly. Students will compose for different audiences and purposes: reflections, inquiries, academic arguments, public writing, field notes. As in all Reintro courses, we’ll work together toward becoming agile writers who understand writing as a social habit, an intellectual practice, and a way to make things happen in the world.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Brodsky, Anne-Elizabeth Murdy
• Room: Krieger 304
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In the American imagination, the open road has been a mythical place of bliss, freedom, and self-discovery. But the experience of the road can change drastically based on one’s gender, sexuality, race, and place of origin. In this course, we’ll examine a diverse set of works that explore the long-standing American fascination with the open road. We’ll consider the “on the road” experience, and we’ll discuss the emotions, desires, and life experiences that lead people to take to the road, and to get off it. At the heart of the course will be a series of writing assignments designed to help students examine the power and limits of this myth. Students will be asked to write in a variety of styles and genres, from op-eds to scholarly arguments, and from personal narratives to rhetorical analyses. These writing assignments will help students reconsider what writing is, how to do it effectively and ethically, and how to become better at it.

• Days/Times: TTh 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Wexler, Anthony Charles
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Ever wanted to be a detective? From crime novels to procedural TV and true crime podcasts, forensic description teaches us how to observe and produce 'objectivity' and truth for entertainment. How does forensic thinking enhance our storytelling and inform our engagement with our everyday surroundings? Why are forensic techniques so fascinating and what are the social implications of our fascination with them? By investigating rhetorical uses of forensic description, we will critically reflect on how different kinds of writing can create truth and the assumption that forensic procedures necessarily yield justice. We will examine texts across popular culture, crime fiction, forensic science, criminology, philosophy, literary theory and the history of medicine. Using forensic tools and concepts, we will critically reflect on how fact-making and storytelling work together in writing. During the semester, students will assemble a case file and try to solve the mystery of themselves as writers. Other assignments will include an academic essay, personal narrative and formal presentation that emphasizes visual storytelling. By connecting forensics with different genres and audiences, and through drafting, peer review and revision, students will develop their process and agility as thinkers and writers.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Ever wanted to be a detective? From crime novels to procedural TV and true crime podcasts, forensic description teaches us how to observe and produce 'objectivity' and truth for entertainment. How does forensic thinking enhance our storytelling and inform our engagement with our everyday surroundings? Why are forensic techniques so fascinating and what are the social implications of our fascination with them? By investigating rhetorical uses of forensic description, we will critically reflect on how different kinds of writing can create truth and the assumption that forensic procedures necessarily yield justice. We will examine texts across popular culture, crime fiction, forensic science, criminology, philosophy, literary theory and the history of medicine. Using forensic tools and concepts, we will critically reflect on how fact-making and storytelling work together in writing. During the semester, students will assemble a case file and try to solve the mystery of themselves as writers. Other assignments will include an academic essay, personal narrative and formal presentation that emphasizes visual storytelling. By connecting forensics with different genres and audiences, and through drafting, peer review and revision, students will develop their process and agility as thinkers and writers.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Grousdanidou, Antonia
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course invites art-curious students to rewrite the material histories of art objects and museums. We will explore hidden narratives and overlooked traditions in art history, non-visual senses and experiences of art making, and the role of reinvention in art museums. Over the semester, we will examine and respond to a range of objects, performances, and writings that think through the public “matter” of art. Course discussion and writing projects will pay special attention to questions of what it means to make and practice a socially engaged art. We will approach writing as both a personal and a social project. We will concentrate on the personal aspects of writing--including expression, habit, transfer--as well as the social aspects of writing—including exploration, persuasion, and convention. This course is site specific. The Baltimore Museum of Art will serve as our archive and object of study.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J.
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course invites art-curious students to rewrite the material histories of art objects and museums. We will explore hidden narratives and overlooked traditions in art history, non-visual senses and experiences of art making, and the role of reinvention in art museums. Over the semester, we will examine and respond to a range of objects, performances, and writings that think through the public “matter” of art. Course discussion and writing projects will pay special attention to questions of what it means to make and practice a socially engaged art. We will approach writing as both a personal and a social project. We will concentrate on the personal aspects of writing--including expression, habit, transfer--as well as the social aspects of writing—including exploration, persuasion, and convention. This course is site specific. The Baltimore Museum of Art will serve as our archive and object of study.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J.
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Defined as the geological age in which human activity is the dominant influence on the environment, the Anthropocene is the age of climate change. In this Reintroduction class we take a step back. Our entry point into the question of climate change is reoriented by drawing daily observations, reading ethnography, and watching movies. We ponder how a focus on the more than human, i.e., animals, plants and fungi expand our understanding of the Anthropocene as a multi-species phenomenon. Thinking with anthropologists, artists and scientists, we learn three techniques into the production of scientific knowledge that integrates natural and human history. We delve into human and more-than human entanglements to stumble upon ‘patchy anthropocenes’ (Tsing et.al) that teach us the arts of seeing environmental phenomenon, introducing new vantage points beyond the human and mapping relationships that enable us to attend to environmental challenges and justice differently. Our tools to develop writing will be drawing a weekly diary, dog meetups, succulent companions, and group in-class debates, to build a peer community of writing and thought. In the process we develop three genres of writing- public, academic and personal narratives (letter to editor, literature review, ethnographic description and story of self), using visual representations of a climate theme to produce a DIY, open access, ‘Anthropozine’. Geared towards different audiences these genres and methods enable you to develop a personal toolkit for writing in and beyond this classroom. You do not need prior training, just a willingness to co-learn new skills. Are you ready?

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Menezes, Benita Maria
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Doctors spend an average of 15 years in medical school and residency to become trained to care for sick patients. Athletes practice daily and maintain a balanced diet to enhance their skills. Moreover, many parents work diligently to support the well-being of their child(ren). The idiomatic phrase take care has a two-fold meaning. First, the phrase is a message associated with one being cautious. Second, it is connected with focusing on something or someone closely. Commonly, take care is used as an informal way of saying “goodbye” when ending a conversation or seeing a guest off after a visit or event of some sort. However, what does it mean to “take care” of someone or something? In what ways do you show that you care about someone/something? How do you know when someone is taking care of you? Who do you care about? Who takes care of you? In this course, students will explore these questions and more to explore the phenomenon of care and taking care in their lives. Students can expect to explore these important questions via scaffolded writing activities which support the major assignments: personal essay, literature review, research-based argument essay, and oral presentation w/visual aid.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Hull, Brittany Sabrina
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Doctors spend an average of 15 years in medical school and residency to become trained to care for sick patients. Athletes practice daily and maintain a balanced diet to enhance their skills. Moreover, many parents work diligently to support the well-being of their child(ren). The idiomatic phrase take care has a two-fold meaning. First, the phrase is a message associated with one being cautious. Second, it is connected with focusing on something or someone closely. Commonly, take care is used as an informal way of saying “goodbye” when ending a conversation or seeing a guest off after a visit or event of some sort. However, what does it mean to “take care” of someone or something? In what ways do you show that you care about someone/something? How do you know when someone is taking care of you? Who do you care about? Who takes care of you? In this course, students will explore these questions and more to explore the phenomenon of care and taking care in their lives. Students can expect to explore these important questions via scaffolded writing activities which support the major assignments: personal essay, literature review, research-based argument essay, and oral presentation w/visual aid.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Hull, Brittany Sabrina
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course proceeds from the supposition that our human-made surroundings—campus and dormitory buildings, public parks, transportation systems, etc.—can shape our writing practices beyond simply providing an occasion for description. We will explore this possibility by looking at ways others have written and thought about the built environment and performing our own investigations into Baltimore’s built environment. In addition to relevant fields like architecture and urban studies, we will consider examples from creative nonfiction, journalism, fiction, public health. We will also embark on several field trips to nearby neighborhoods in Baltimore. The final project provides an opportunity concentrate on one aspect of the built environment of Baltimore or another location of interest.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Loftis, Cameron Jalayer
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Many of us have (at least) two selves: an analog or "real-life" self and a digital self. These doppelgangers can bear striking resemblance to our embodied selves—or not—and raise many questions around issues of representation, authenticity, and impersonation. So too, we leave digital traces of ourselves in the form of "data doubles," extracted through clicks, scrolls, and other forms of tracked data. This double is frequently a target for manipulation and persuasion, but also can be a tool to enhance creativity and efficiency in our analog lives. Beyond individual identity, entire communities and cities now possess their own "data doppelgangers"—algorithmic profiles built from aggregated citizen data that inform municipal decision-making, resource allocation, and policy implementation. In this course, we will investigate the concept of the digital doppelganger from three distinct perspectives, asking how our capacious digital identities are formed, changed, and controlled in commercial, civic, and creative contexts. Students will examine both personal and civic dimensions of digital identity, including how cities like Baltimore use citizen data to create municipal "data doubles" for urban planning, service delivery, and governance. By crafting podcasts, policy briefs, and creative computational projects, students will develop critical thinking skills, learn to communicate with agility and precision across different genres, and reflect on how we create and know ourselves—individually and collectively—in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Schnitzler, Carly Elisabeth
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

“I think, therefore I am,” said philosopher René Descartes. Writing is an embodied activity connecting us to ourselves and our own minds as much as it connects us to others. Because writing is a body-mind activity, cultivating and strengthening this link is crucial for our success as writers—this is the goal of the course. Course projects center three core mindfulness themes: time, attention, and practice. We will write research-based essays, craft creative portfolios, and, in the last project, deploy what we’ve learned and try out a mindfulness practice of your choice. We will also develop a regular mindfulness practice together. Each day, class will begin with a guided meditation and journaling exercise. The meditations may range from the Ignatian Examen to a sound bath to a craft to guided writing prompts. Dr. Hartmann-Villalta and Dr. Schnitzler’s sections are linked and taught in tandem; students will exchange writing and have similar discussions across both sections. The sections will collaborate on a semester-long reflective craft project. This course is for you if you are: looking to examine how you use your time; game to try new things; don’t mind silence; and ready to strengthen your mind and writing.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Schnitzler, Carly Elisabeth
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What does it really mean to be "educated," and how does college — especially Johns Hopkins — shape that experience for you? In this class, we’ll tackle big questions about learning, identity, and your evolving role as a college student, while diving into the skills you’ll need to succeed here at Hopkins and beyond. You’ll reflect on the unique knowledge, perspectives, and communication styles you bring to the table, and work on building the tools to analyze, write, and interact across different contexts — whether that’s interpreting a challenging research paper, collaborating with a diverse group, or finding your voice in a class discussion. We’ll also explore how power and identity influence how we learn, express ourselves, and connect with others. Expect hands-on projects like crafting a personal learning reflection, building an annotated bibliography, digging into an important issue for an analytical paper, and sharing a presentation on your experiences as a first-year student. By the end of the course, you’ll not only better understand your own educational journey but also be equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities of life at Hopkins and beyond. Come ready to write, reflect, and reimagine your approach to learning — and to life in college!

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Egan, Caroline
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do you move things—texts and media, arguments and objects, hearts and minds—with words? Translation, in its original sense, describes an act of “carrying across,” or moving something from one place to another. The word’s meaning has since expanded to include movement across languages, cultures, and rhetorical situations. If you have ever watched a subtitled film, played a localized edition of a video game, or read a work of foreign literature in your native tongue, then you have engaged with a world of traveling texts and media in motion enabled by translation. And if you have ever wondered whether something has been lost in translation, you are not alone. Translation is difficult. In fact, scholars have even written an entire Dictionary of Untranslatables. And yet, we still translate. This is less surprising when we realize that, in a broader sense, we are all always already translating whenever we attempt to put thoughts into words, arrange ideas into arguments, or transform theories into action. In the first part of the course, students will engage in a series of experimental translations of short poems by canonical Japanese poets like Matsuo Bashō and Ono no Komachi, subtitle scenes from one of Ozu Yasujirō’s cinematic masterpieces, and practice writing to reflect on and deepen their understanding of the choices made in these translations. Then, in the second part of the course, students will apply these insights to considerations of translation more broadly as they practice translating to and from the academic context through genres like the academic blog post and the manifesto. (No prior knowledge of a foreign language is required or expected.)

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Chris Ross
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do you move things—texts and media, arguments and objects, hearts and minds—with words? Translation, in its original sense, describes an act of “carrying across,” or moving something from one place to another. The word’s meaning has since expanded to include movement across languages, cultures, and rhetorical situations. If you have ever watched a subtitled film, played a localized edition of a video game, or read a work of foreign literature in your native tongue, then you have engaged with a world of traveling texts and media in motion enabled by translation. And if you have ever wondered whether something has been lost in translation, you are not alone. Translation is difficult. In fact, scholars have even written an entire Dictionary of Untranslatables. And yet, we still translate. This is less surprising when we realize that, in a broader sense, we are all always already translating whenever we attempt to put thoughts into words, arrange ideas into arguments, or transform theories into action. In the first part of the course, students will engage in a series of experimental translations of short poems by canonical Japanese poets like Matsuo Bashō and Ono no Komachi, subtitle scenes from one of Ozu Yasujirō’s cinematic masterpieces, and practice writing to reflect on and deepen their understanding of the choices made in these translations. Then, in the second part of the course, students will apply these insights to considerations of translation more broadly as they practice translating to and from the academic context through genres like the academic blog post and the manifesto. (No prior knowledge of a foreign language is required or expected.)

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Chris Ross
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do you move things—texts and media, arguments and objects, hearts and minds—with words? Translation, in its original sense, describes an act of “carrying across,” or moving something from one place to another. The word’s meaning has since expanded to include movement across languages, cultures, and rhetorical situations. If you have ever watched a subtitled film, played a localized edition of a video game, or read a work of foreign literature in your native tongue, then you have engaged with a world of traveling texts and media in motion enabled by translation. And if you have ever wondered whether something has been lost in translation, you are not alone. Translation is difficult. In fact, scholars have even written an entire Dictionary of Untranslatables. And yet, we still translate. This is less surprising when we realize that, in a broader sense, we are all always already translating whenever we attempt to put thoughts into words, arrange ideas into arguments, or transform theories into action. In the first part of the course, students will engage in a series of experimental translations of short poems by canonical Japanese poets like Matsuo Bashō and Ono no Komachi, subtitle scenes from one of Ozu Yasujirō’s cinematic masterpieces, and practice writing to reflect on and deepen their understanding of the choices made in these translations. Then, in the second part of the course, students will apply these insights to considerations of translation more broadly as they practice translating to and from the academic context through genres like the academic blog post and the manifesto. (No prior knowledge of a foreign language is required or expected.)

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Chris Ross
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is at risk when we create space for justice in an unjust world? This course invites students to explore writing as both a means of personal expression and a tool for social intervention. Through storytelling, analysis, and research, we will examine how writers respond to systems of inequality, including racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and more, and how language itself can resist or reinforce those systems. Students will engage with essays, protest literature, digital activism, and public discourse to investigate how writing shapes not only power, but also possibilities for liberation. As students develop their own voices, they will also build foundational skills in academic writing, including critical reading, rhetorical analysis, and research-based argumentation. Projects will include a personal narrative about students’ relationships to social justice, a rhetorical analysis of a public text or movement, and a researched argument on a contemporary issue of their choice. Throughout the course, students will practice writing rooted in reflection, revision, and community accountability, while strengthening their ability to write with clarity, purpose, and audience awareness. Through peer collaboration and feedback, we’ll interrogate what we want to say, who we’re speaking for, with, and to, and what is at stake when we do.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Blackmon, Codi Renee Renee
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is at risk when we create space for justice in an unjust world? This course invites students to explore writing as both a means of personal expression and a tool for social intervention. Through storytelling, analysis, and research, we will examine how writers respond to systems of inequality, including racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and more, and how language itself can resist or reinforce those systems. Students will engage with essays, protest literature, digital activism, and public discourse to investigate how writing shapes not only power, but also possibilities for liberation. As students develop their own voices, they will also build foundational skills in academic writing, including critical reading, rhetorical analysis, and research-based argumentation. Projects will include a personal narrative about students’ relationships to social justice, a rhetorical analysis of a public text or movement, and a researched argument on a contemporary issue of their choice. Throughout the course, students will practice writing rooted in reflection, revision, and community accountability, while strengthening their ability to write with clarity, purpose, and audience awareness. Through peer collaboration and feedback, we’ll interrogate what we want to say, who we’re speaking for, with, and to, and what is at stake when we do.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Blackmon, Codi Renee Renee
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this process-based composition course, we will write in a variety of genres for a number of audiences while exploring what it means to move among and through the multiple literacies in our lives. We will read texts which examine the ways that our literacies shape our experience in the world and the ways that we are shaped by our language. We will examine these ideas in both U.S. and international contexts. In addition, we will explore scholarly works on writing theory as it applies to our own writing and language identities. Writing assignments will include literacy narratives, documented essays, reflections, and reading responses. We will engage in frequent peer review activities striving to become excellent readers of others' work.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Vinyard, Deirdre Will
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In a 2012 New York Times interview critic Steven Greenblatt referred to literature as “the most astonishing technological means that human beings have created, and now practiced for thousands of years, to capture experience.” In contrast, focusing on his own specific literary practice, W.H. Auden famously said “poetry makes nothing happen.” So which one has it right? In this class we’ll focus on whether poetry serves any purpose in society, and if so what, and why. As a means of helping answer this question we’ll also consider whether there’s such a thing as a poetry community, and who belongs to it, as well as how the enjoyment of poetry through close reading might help us decide whether poetry has any bearing on people’s lives. We’ll attend and review a poetry reading, interview local poets, look at books and magazines where poetry appears, engage with critics, write short essays that help fellow readers appreciate poems we find striking, and in the process gain a deeper and richer understanding of what this art form is all about. Members of the class must be able to attend one local live poetry reading outside of class.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Berger, Donald W
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do we communicate bodily pain? Who gets to tell health stories, and who is represented in those stories? This course explores health and illness, beyond medical histories and clinical data, by centering human experiences of illness as depicted through narratives. These narratives are shaped by people’s identities, cultures, politics, etc. Our goal is to humanize complex medical realities through health narratives. To achieve this goal, we will focus on reading and writing health narratives across multiple genres and media. Throughout the semester, you will analyze health narratives like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Something the Lord Made, The Wounded Storyteller, and When Breath Becomes Air, as we reflect on the ethics of writing illness, writing as a mode of healing, resistance, and meaning-making. You will write personal health narratives, reflective essays, analytical pieces, and design graphic health narratives, aiming for healthcare advocacy, engagement, and building connections. Whether you come to this course as an advocate, an aspiring healthcare provider, or someone with a story, you’ll be invited to answer these questions: What does it mean to write about the body? What stories about ailing bodies demand telling? How can writing become a space for agency, resistance, or care? 

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Eduaful, Fredrica Markson
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do we communicate bodily pain? Who gets to tell health stories, and who is represented in those stories? This course explores health and illness, beyond medical histories and clinical data, by centering human experiences of illness as depicted through narratives. These narratives are shaped by people’s identities, cultures, politics, etc. Our goal is to humanize complex medical realities through health narratives. To achieve this goal, we will focus on reading and writing health narratives across multiple genres and media. Throughout the semester, you will analyze health narratives like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Something the Lord Made, The Wounded Storyteller, and When Breath Becomes Air, as we reflect on the ethics of writing illness, writing as a mode of healing, resistance, and meaning-making. You will write personal health narratives, reflective essays, analytical pieces, and design graphic health narratives, aiming for healthcare advocacy, engagement, and building connections. Whether you come to this course as an advocate, an aspiring healthcare provider, or someone with a story, you’ll be invited to answer these questions: What does it mean to write about the body? What stories about ailing bodies demand telling? How can writing become a space for agency, resistance, or care? 

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Eduaful, Fredrica Markson
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

There’s no question that much of our public discourse contains speech that can be regarded as false, worthless, and hateful. In these ways speech can produce real harm to individuals and society. Why then do we feel that it is important to protect speech to the maximum extent? That’s the large question we will address through a series of writing projects. We begin by reading John Stuart Mill’s canonical justification of free speech in his treatise On Liberty. You write an argumentative essay that challenges Mill’s view. Next, you will engage with a variety of scholarly critics and timely case studies on “hate speech” before writing an opinion piece that proposes what we should do about it. And in the final unit you are invited to research a free speech controversy that interests you. Using online resources like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), you will map a particular controversy and produce an oral and written report of your findings. Balancing the value of free speech with its costs, we will be focused on how effective counter-speech might hold promise in elevating our public discourse without resorting to heavy regulation and censorship.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

There’s no question that much of our public discourse contains speech that can be regarded as false, worthless, and hateful. In these ways speech can produce real harm to individuals and society. Why then do we feel that it is important to protect speech to the maximum extent? That’s the large question we will address through a series of writing projects. We begin by reading John Stuart Mill’s canonical justification of free speech in his treatise On Liberty. You write an argumentative essay that challenges Mill’s view. Next, you will engage with a variety of scholarly critics and timely case studies on “hate speech” before writing an opinion piece that proposes what we should do about it. And in the final unit you are invited to research a free speech controversy that interests you. Using online resources like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), you will map a particular controversy and produce an oral and written report of your findings. Balancing the value of free speech with its costs, we will be focused on how effective counter-speech might hold promise in elevating our public discourse without resorting to heavy regulation and censorship.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do writers, artists, and musicians represent places, and how do places shape their works? In this course, we will explore regionalism in arts and culture, engaging with the geographies, communities, and distinctive styles of often-forgotten places. Our focus on local contexts will allow us to think about national and global contexts in new and surprising ways. Representations of place will serve as our starting point to raise and answer questions about social and political history, environmental issues, and rural and urban space. Students will write across genres; assignments include a literary analysis essay, a journalistic place profile, a collaborative audio project, and a conference presentation. These assignments will help students develop skills in critically interpreting media, contributing to academic conversations, and communicating their experiences and interests.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Murphy, Jamison F
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do writers, artists, and musicians represent places, and how do places shape their works? In this course, we will explore regionalism in arts and culture, engaging with the geographies, communities, and distinctive styles of often-forgotten places. Our focus on local contexts will allow us to think about national and global contexts in new and surprising ways. Representations of place will serve as our starting point to raise and answer questions about social and political history, environmental issues, and rural and urban space. Students will write across genres; assignments include a literary analysis essay, a journalistic place profile, a collaborative audio project, and a conference presentation. These assignments will help students develop skills in critically interpreting media, contributing to academic conversations, and communicating their experiences and interests.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Murphy, Jamison F
• Room: Gilman 313
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do writers, artists, and musicians represent places, and how do places shape their works? In this course, we will explore regionalism in arts and culture, engaging with the geographies, communities, and distinctive styles of often-forgotten places. Our focus on local contexts will allow us to think about national and global contexts in new and surprising ways. Representations of place will serve as our starting point to raise and answer questions about social and political history, environmental issues, and rural and urban space. Students will write across genres; assignments include a literary analysis essay, a journalistic place profile, a collaborative audio project, and a conference presentation. These assignments will help students develop skills in critically interpreting media, contributing to academic conversations, and communicating their experiences and interests.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Murphy, Jamison F
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Revision describes the development of a text into a new (potentially improved) form. This class explores the concept of revision not only in a writing context but also in terms of the ways our identities or beliefs can shift over time, with the help of writing, reading, research, and collaboration. College can be an important time of reflecting on who we are, perhaps revising earlier “drafts” of ourselves, while also determining the parts of ourselves we do not wish to revise. We’ll also discuss writing for internal purposes, such as writing to explore one’s thinking and to access one’s internal rhetoric (self-talk) for self-understanding, potentially working to revise certain detrimental patterns of thinking, and expressive writing as an intervention in healthcare and counselling contexts. As we shift to focus on external purposes for writing, we will consider how writing choices depend on our target audience, purpose, context, and genre. Students will learn effective ways to help other writers revise their writing and how to utilize feedback from others during revision. Students will explore the many meanings of revision as they work on informal journals, a narrative argument essay, a research paper, and a multimodal revision project.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Goransson, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Revision describes the development of a text into a new (potentially improved) form. This class explores the concept of revision not only in a writing context but also in terms of the ways our identities or beliefs can shift over time, with the help of writing, reading, research, and collaboration. College can be an important time of reflecting on who we are, perhaps revising earlier “drafts” of ourselves, while also determining the parts of ourselves we do not wish to revise. We’ll also discuss writing for internal purposes, such as writing to explore one’s thinking and to access one’s internal rhetoric (self-talk) for self-understanding, potentially working to revise certain detrimental patterns of thinking, and expressive writing as an intervention in healthcare and counselling contexts. As we shift to focus on external purposes for writing, we will consider how writing choices depend on our target audience, purpose, context, and genre. Students will learn effective ways to help other writers revise their writing and how to utilize feedback from others during revision. Students will explore the many meanings of revision as they work on informal journals, a narrative argument essay, a research paper, and a multimodal revision project.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Goransson, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What does it mean to reflect on and write about the recent past—events and memories we have left behind but whose effects we continue to grapple with? How does writing about the recent past differ from writing about the distant past, or writing in the midst of events as they unfold? How have writers captured the unique ambivalence of the recent past, which, positioned between immediacy and distance, allows for a critical reflection rooted in adjacency? This writing course will investigate these questions by engaging with contemporary writings such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, which reflect, respectively, on recent world-historical, global epidemiological, and personal events in different ways. Through a series of writing assignments, including a personal essay and an academic paper, students will examine, practice, and critically evaluate different narrative strategies for representing the recent past. The writing assignments, combined with a series of in-class workshops and peer reviews, will encourage students to address audiences beyond the classroom and help them become more agile writers.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Yoo, Jungmin
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In Fall 2025, Baltimore City joined the parade of school districts across the country in banning cell phones and other personal electronic devices from the classroom. Though the district offered numerous reasons for the ban, chief among them was that phones were making it difficult for students to pay attention. Many of us can probably relate to the struggle to pay attention in our daily lives. Attention is often described as our most valuable asset, and yet it is also something over which we feel we have little control. Indeed, much of our modern world – from entertainment and social media to education and politics – is built on attracting, keeping, and commodifying our attention, often without our knowledge or permission. This writing course treats attention as both a topic of study and a skill to develop. Our work centers on three key questions: how has our attention been captured by technology? How can we – through writing and reflective practices – reclaim our attention? And how can we as writers direct our attention and the attention of others towards things that matter? To explore these questions, we will examine a variety of attention-capturing technologies, from twentieth-century print advertisements to contemporary algorithmic-driven social media. Our readings will draw on insights from a broad range of disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and computer science. Along the way, we will practice different meditative and attention-focusing techniques and engage with a range of writing forms and genres, including personal narratives, academic essays, reviews, reflective writing, social media posts, and op-ed essays.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Lorts, Justin
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

If you like libraries, old books, cursive handwriting, and crinkly papers; if you have ever wondered how information is preserved and knowledge is created; if you want to have a classroom experience that involves other physical spaces on campus; if you ever dressed up as Indiana Jones for Halloween—then this course is for you. In collaboration with the Sheridan Libraries, the Makerspace, and more, students engage with resources, materials, and locations that are often out-of-bounds for first-year students. For example, we will dive into the Women’s Suffrage Collection to uncover the historical context of suffrage postcards and other one-of-a-kind items that we examine up close. As we discuss archival absences and presences in another unit, students will write an acquisition proposal to pitch to Special Collections librarians, within the constraints of an imaginary budget, practicing both academic research and advocacy for a purchase(s) of their choice. We also explore campus history through a walking tour with Jacqueline O’Regan, Curator of Cultural Properties under the Sheridan Libraries, and examine our experience of these public spaces and their artworks in a reflective assignment. Throughout the semester, in and out of class, students will write in different genres for different audiences as they actively engage, keep track of, and invest in their own learning.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

"“I think, therefore I am,” said philosopher René Descartes. Writing is an embodied activity connecting us to ourselves and our own minds as much as it connects us to others. Because writing is a body-mind activity, cultivating and strengthening this link is crucial for our success as writers—this is the goal of the course. Course projects center three core mindfulness themes: time, attention, and practice. We will write research-based essays, craft creative portfolios, and, in the last project, deploy what we’ve learned and try out a mindfulness practice of your choice. We will also develop a regular mindfulness practice together. Each day, class will begin with a guided meditation and journaling exercise. The meditations may range from the Ignatian Examen to a sound bath to a craft to guided writing prompts. Dr. Hartmann-Villalta and Dr. Schnitzler’s sections are linked and taught in tandem; students will exchange writing and have similar discussions across both sections. The sections will collaborate on a semester-long reflective craft project. This course is for you if you are: looking to examine how you use your time; game to try new things; don’t mind silence; and ready to strengthen your mind and writing.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

How do we visualize and analyze a city? This course explores Baltimore’s spaces, histories, and communities through digital mapping, media analysis, and multimodal composition. Students will investigate how the built environment, cultural narratives, and historical forces shape urban life, using writing and digital media as tools for inquiry. Working in small teams, students will research and produce a short documentary-style video featuring a Baltimore community or nonprofit. Their work will contribute to a collaborative digital map, creating a shared representation of the city’s cultural and historical assets. Throughout the semester, students will develop skills in video production, interactive mapping, and data visualization, experimenting with different media forms to examine Baltimore’s complexities. They will use spatial mapping, sound recording, and digital research to uncover patterns, frame inquiries, and translate findings into compelling projects. By semester’s end, students will have produced a team-based, research-driven video and contributed to a shared digital map, gaining experience in multimodal composition, ethical representation, and digital media.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Fusilier, Lauren
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

February 2023 data from the National Vital Statistics System states that maternal mortality rates decreased significantly per 100,000 births for White (14.5) and Hispanic women (12.4), and stayed the same for Black mothers (50.3) in the United States. In this first-year writing course, students will explore the history of home births, the medicalization of childbirths, alongside the foundations of American gynecology. Through course readings, discussions, research, and community engagement students will seek to understand the current role institutions, community organizations, future medical practitioners, and public health workers like themselves play in improving maternal mortality rates. Students will write in a range of genres including fact sheets, personal narratives, and profile essays, which will allow students to follow a course of inquiry that will lead them to a point of interest to compose a traditional academic paper, multimodal composition or public facing writing as their final project. Students will support their research questions by using credible sources such as narratives, scholarly articles, and reputed journalism. Potential texts include excerpts by Margaret Charles Smith, Onnie Lee Logan, Tressie Cottom, Nikky Finney, Serena Williams, Allyson Felix, Beyonce, and other maternal health scholars, researchers, and advocates.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In the history of the United States, the voices of women, enslaved people, and indigenous people, among others, have been systematically underrepresented. Their stories have been kept out of the archives, and they have been largely excluded from this nation's history as a result. In recent years, however, scholars, writers and artists have turned their attention to these omissions and tried to bring these silenced voices back to life. In the process, a more complete version of U.S. history has begun to emerge. In this writing course, we'll explore the forces responsible for these silences—illiteracy, racism, violence—and the ways that writers and artists have attempted to make these silences speak. Over the course of the semester, students will analyze multiple genres of historical writing, consider a broad range of literary and artistic works, and visit different archives—the places where historians go to learn about the past. Students will also produce a series of writing assignments, from a museum exhibit script to an academic essay, and from a “guest essay” in the style of the New York Times to a series of personal reflections.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Pilatte, Malaurie Jacqueline
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reintroduction to Writing, JHU’s first-year writing course, steps beyond the writing skills necessary to get to college: our shared project is to help you learn how to write for the rest of your life. We approach writing as an adaptable process of inquiry and action, as deeply informed by reading, and as reflective, embodied, and always emerging practice. In this course, we will rethink writing in ways that will help you throughout college, your professional career, personal life, and civic responsibilities in a democracy. Toward that end, this course teaches you to become an agile, curious, creative, and resilient writer. You will read and write academic texts; rhetorically analyze a wide variety of sources, including for the conventions of diverse genres; and write across genres, developing skill and precision in your writing, as well as fluency across contexts, audiences, and media. Topics vary. Please see the specific semester and section for current offerings. In fall semesters (only), we offer sections of Reintro reserved for students at the sophomore level and above. All other sections are reserved for first-years. Please see "Special Notes" under each section. Please refer to the section level information for applicable Foundational Abilities when registering.

• Days/Times: MW 8:30AM - 9:45AM
• Instructor: Pilatte, Malaurie Jacqueline
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In the history of the United States, the voices of women, enslaved people, and indigenous people, among others, have been systematically underrepresented. Their stories have been kept out of the archives, and they have been largely excluded from this nation's history as a result. In recent years, however, scholars, writers and artists have turned their attention to these omissions and tried to bring these silenced voices back to life. In the process, a more complete version of U.S. history has begun to emerge. In this writing course, we'll explore the forces responsible for these silences—illiteracy, racism, violence—and the ways that writers and artists have attempted to make these silences speak. Over the course of the semester, students will analyze multiple genres of historical writing, consider a broad range of literary and artistic works, and visit different archives—the places where historians go to learn about the past. Students will also produce a series of writing assignments, from a museum exhibit script to an academic essay, and from a “guest essay” in the style of the New York Times to a series of personal reflections.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Pilatte, Malaurie Jacqueline
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Who (or what) speaks? Humans are increasingly thinking about their relationship with nonhumans, ranging from AI to animals to corporations, including whether some nonhumans can or should be said to speak. AI speech can be mistaken for human speech, though it is commonly thought not to have meaning or intention in the same way. Researchers are increasingly turning to AI to try to decode the communications of animals and raising the possibility that some animals, such as sperm whales, may be said to use language not unlike we do. Corporations in the United States have legal personhood, which includes the right to free speech. This class will query how we should interpret nonhuman “speech.” How do we recognize speakers, and according to what criteria? What is the relationship between speech and rights? And how does nonhuman speech change our understanding of how we create meaning and connection with one another? Writing will be at the heart of our class. Across a series of writing assignments, we will study and write in multiple genres, including scholarly arguments, personal narratives, proposals, and reflections. Throughout the course, we will explore connections between nonhuman speech and our own.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: O'Connor, Marisa T
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Who (or what) speaks? Humans are increasingly thinking about their relationship with nonhumans, ranging from AI to animals to corporations, including whether some nonhumans can or should be said to speak. AI speech can be mistaken for human speech, though it is commonly thought not to have meaning or intention in the same way. Researchers are increasingly turning to AI to try to decode the communications of animals and raising the possibility that some animals, such as sperm whales, may be said to use language not unlike we do. Corporations in the United States have legal personhood, which includes the right to free speech. This class will query how we should interpret nonhuman “speech.” How do we recognize speakers, and according to what criteria? What is the relationship between speech and rights? And how does nonhuman speech change our understanding of how we create meaning and connection with one another? Writing will be at the heart of our class. Across a series of writing assignments, we will study and write in multiple genres, including scholarly arguments, personal narratives, proposals, and reflections. Throughout the course, we will explore connections between nonhuman speech and our own.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: O'Connor, Marisa T
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is Hollywood’s—and our—fascination with robbery? Challenging assumptions about criminality, justice and injustice, the heist (or ‘caper’) film makes theft into a subversive art form, a creative collaboration between a team of experts trying to pull off something extraordinary. We will study the history of this highly flexible genre to consider: Who are the bad guys? What is robbery? Why do we root for these characters, and why do we find it so enjoyable to watch them fail? These are some of the questions we will explore in “Reintroduction to Writing: The Heist Film,” a first-year writing course that asks us to think about how popular genres like the “caper” function as both escapist fantasy and social commentary. Through writing assignments that include argumentative essays, film reviews, and a creative project, students will also develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they examine the history and conventions of the heist film. At the end of the semester, students will use their knowledge of the genre to plan their own heist narrative: a creative research project that uses our university campus as the setting for a daring robbery.

• Days/Times: MW 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Cram, Mitchell Allan
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is Hollywood’s—and our—fascination with robbery? Challenging assumptions about criminality, justice and injustice, the heist (or ‘caper’) film makes theft into a subversive art form, a creative collaboration between a team of experts trying to pull off something extraordinary. We will study the history of this highly flexible genre to consider: Who are the bad guys? What is robbery? Why do we root for these characters, and why do we find it so enjoyable to watch them fail? These are some of the questions we will explore in “Reintroduction to Writing: The Heist Film,” a first-year writing course that asks us to think about how popular genres like the “caper” function as both escapist fantasy and social commentary. Through writing assignments that include argumentative essays, film reviews, and a creative project, students will also develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they examine the history and conventions of the heist film. At the end of the semester, students will use their knowledge of the genre to plan their own heist narrative: a creative research project that uses our university campus as the setting for a daring robbery.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Cram, Mitchell Allan
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A visitor to Baltimore seeking guidance to LGBTQ+ areas in the city, would likely be directed to the Mount Vernon neighborhood, an area that some call Baltimore’s “gayborhood.” However, LGBTQ+ spaces and organizing can be found throughout Baltimore. This course will focus on the sometimes-hidden histories of LGBTQ+ Baltimore in the neighborhoods closest to the Homewood campus. By investigating local LGBTQ+ archives, we will learn not only to read as writers, but to understand the role of writing – print media and publishing houses – in creating queer communities in Baltimore and beyond. Many of these publications, such as The Baltimore Gay Paper, originated in the neighborhoods closest to Homewood. We’ll also make use of the trans and queer archives held in the Sheridan Libraries, including those centered on LGBTQ student life and organizing at Hopkins. Students will learn the fundamentals of academic writing as they identify and research local sites related to queer history. Drawing on this research, students will determine a location, genre, and medium for sharing the histories they have uncovered with a broader audience.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A visitor to Baltimore seeking guidance to LGBTQ+ areas in the city, would likely be directed to the Mount Vernon neighborhood, an area that some call Baltimore’s “gayborhood.” However, LGBTQ+ spaces and organizing can be found throughout Baltimore. This course will focus on the sometimes-hidden histories of LGBTQ+ Baltimore in the neighborhoods closest to the Homewood campus. By investigating local LGBTQ+ archives, we will learn not only to read as writers, but to understand the role of writing – print media and publishing houses – in creating queer communities in Baltimore and beyond. Many of these publications, such as The Baltimore Gay Paper, originated in the neighborhoods closest to Homewood. We’ll also make use of the trans and queer archives held in the Sheridan Libraries, including those centered on LGBTQ student life and organizing at Hopkins. Students will learn the fundamentals of academic writing as they identify and research local sites related to queer history. Drawing on this research, students will determine a location, genre, and medium for sharing the histories they have uncovered with a broader audience.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this section of Reintroduction to Writing, students will engage with a broad range of ecological, literary, and scientific texts and respond to them with their own original criticism, research, presentations, and creative projects. Together, we'll examine questions of biology, environmental poly-crisis, ecology, planetary health and more by reading both classic and contemporary texts from the field. We'll consider the relationships between the natural world and the rhetoric we use to describe that world and we'll examine texts that exist at the intersection of the sciences and humanities, paying close attention to how journalists, essayists, researchers, and storytellers envision and refigure the natural world in their work. 

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Brown, Nate
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this section of Reintroduction to Writing, students will engage with a broad range of ecological, literary, and scientific texts and respond to them with their own original criticism, research, presentations, and creative projects. Together, we'll examine questions of biology, environmental poly-crisis, ecology, planetary health and more by reading both classic and contemporary texts from the field. We'll consider the relationships between the natural world and the rhetoric we use to describe that world and we'll examine texts that exist at the intersection of the sciences and humanities, paying close attention to how journalists, essayists, researchers, and storytellers envision and refigure the natural world in their work. 

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Brown, Nate
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Competing views about the dangers and potential benefits of drugs are ubiquitous. In the context of changing drug laws regarding psychedelic medicines, the legalization of cannabis, and “mandatory minimum” jail sentences, how can we gain insight into the cultural history of drugs in our society? This writing course will provide the opportunity for students to directly engage with recent debates over drug legislation by critically reflecting on the evolution of writing about drugs over the past 250 years. How does the cultural understanding of drugs change with shifts in rhetoric? How can we balance the need to protect society while still respecting individual freedoms and privacy? How can the latest scientific and sociological research help to guide legislative decisions? Our society’s understandings about drugs and their relationship to human consciousness have been—and continue to be—mediated by rhetoric and public discussions. By directly engaging in this evolving rhetoric through written and oral assignments, students will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of this complex and persistent topic. Students will explore this topic by writing in a variety of genres and persuasive strategies, including op-eds, policy memos, close textual and visual analyses, and reflections.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Devenot, Nese Lisa
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

For decades science fiction authors hoped or feared that when artificial intelligence (AI) did appear it would be indistinguishable from humans in both appearance and speech. Yet now that so-called AI has appeared we overwhelmingly interact with it through the disembodied medium of writing. How do we tell the difference in writing between the presence of human intelligence or not? How can we say that any mind, human or non-human, is behind the writing we read? When people writing back and forth with AI believe it is uniquely talking to them, fall in love with their chatbot, or lose touch with reality itself, how does the medium of writing facilitate these outcomes? Students will investigate these questions through readings in philosophy of language and semiotics, documenting and reflecting on their own interactions with Large-Language Models (LLM) and AI, and practice developing their own writing voice through persuasive opinion pieces and creative non-fiction in order to communicate to the public about the emerging but crucial issue of AI's role in public life.

• Days/Times: TTh 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Lester, Quinn A
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

For decades science fiction authors hoped or feared that when artificial intelligence (AI) did appear it would be indistinguishable from humans in both appearance and speech. Yet now that so-called AI has appeared we overwhelmingly interact with it through the disembodied medium of writing. How do we tell the difference in writing between the presence of human intelligence or not? How can we say that any mind, human or non-human, is behind the writing we read? When people writing back and forth with AI believe it is uniquely talking to them, fall in love with their chatbot, or lose touch with reality itself, how does the medium of writing facilitate these outcomes? Students will investigate these questions through readings in philosophy of language and semiotics, documenting and reflecting on their own interactions with Large-Language Models (LLM) and AI, and practice developing their own writing voice through persuasive opinion pieces and creative non-fiction in order to communicate to the public about the emerging but crucial issue of AI's role in public life.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Lester, Quinn A
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Playing with language is part of many people’s daily experience, from puns and plays on words to alliteration and rhyme. Grounding ourselves in the classical rhetorical tradition, this course invites students to go beyond the types of writing done in high school and to develop their writing practice through a playful approach to language. We’ll read and write across a variety of genres and forms, from academic arguments to personal narratives and public-facing writing. We’ll engage in hands-on linguistic revelry with authors like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Queneau. And we’ll spend time in Sheridan Libraries’ Special Collections, handling old and rare books, manuscripts, and visual materials. Potential authors include, beyond those already mentioned, Aristotle, the Bible, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Erasmus, G. K. Chesterton, and Sister Miriam Joseph. Please note that the use of electronic devices is not permitted in this class, in order to promote the active engagement of all students in the seminar.

• Days/Times: MW 8:30AM - 9:45AM
• Instructor: Essam, Richard James Llewellyn
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 4/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Playing with language is part of many people’s daily experience, from puns and plays on words to alliteration and rhyme. Grounding ourselves in the classical rhetorical tradition, this course invites students to go beyond the types of writing done in high school and to develop their writing practice through a playful approach to language. We’ll read and write across a variety of genres and forms, from academic arguments to personal narratives and public-facing writing. We’ll engage in hands-on linguistic revelry with authors like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Queneau. And we’ll spend time in Sheridan Libraries’ Special Collections, handling old and rare books, manuscripts, and visual materials. Potential authors include, beyond those already mentioned, Aristotle, the Bible, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Erasmus, G. K. Chesterton, and Sister Miriam Joseph. Please note that the use of electronic devices is not permitted in this class, in order to promote the active engagement of all students in the seminar.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Essam, Richard James Llewellyn
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Do you ever feel afraid to write? Perhaps you’re anxious about how what you write will ‘sound,’ depending on who you are writing for. Or maybe fear shapes what you write about—or prevents you from writing about some things. You may have written in fear, or through fear. Writing is a process of inquiry, reflection, and revision. Can it also be an act of courage? Resistance? Transformation? What do you think about writing that is intended to provoke or instill fear? In Fear and Writing, students will explore how fear shapes our stories, our arguments, and our identities, and the ways in which writing influences fear. Through a diverse selection of texts—ranging from memoirs and cultural critiques to horror fiction and political rhetoric—students will investigate fear as a personal, social, and rhetorical phenomenon. Topics may include fear in media and politics, the role of fear in shaping public discourse, writing about trauma and vulnerability, and the enjoyment of fear in entertainment and amusement. Writing assignments may include personal narratives, analytical essays, film or literature reviews, and a research project that invites students to explore a fear-related topic of their choice.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Koullas, Sandy Gillian
• Room: Maryland 104
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In FUTURE_SHOCK, students tackle the tortures of invention in academic writing by analyzing how writers in the past invented entire futures, not out of thin air, but based on what they saw in the present. This course positions writing as a means of using and reusing the texts we encounter around us and the experiences in which we find them as sources of creativity. We’ll draw inspiration from future-focused genres like cyberpunk media and industrial music, and we’ll get tips from unlikely sources like computer hacking, physical media, role-playing games, long-term nuclear waste storage, and more. In individual semester projects, students will write narratives, analytical essays, proposals, arguments, and more as they develop a low-stakes, personal interest into a topic fit for scholarly inquiry. Students will develop their projects’ by collaborating in small crews to learn rhetorical awareness, genre conventions, and research techniques by observing and entering online communities like Reddit, Twitch, and Discord.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Benson, Schuler
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In FUTURE_SHOCK, students tackle the tortures of invention in academic writing by analyzing how writers in the past invented entire futures, not out of thin air, but based on what they saw in the present. This course positions writing as a means of using and reusing the texts we encounter around us and the experiences in which we find them as sources of creativity. We’ll draw inspiration from future-focused genres like cyberpunk media and industrial music, and we’ll get tips from unlikely sources like computer hacking, physical media, role-playing games, long-term nuclear waste storage, and more. In individual semester projects, students will write narratives, analytical essays, proposals, arguments, and more as they develop a low-stakes, personal interest into a topic fit for scholarly inquiry. Students will develop their projects’ by collaborating in small crews to learn rhetorical awareness, genre conventions, and research techniques by observing and entering online communities like Reddit, Twitch, and Discord.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Benson, Schuler
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In a world that is increasingly concerned with efficiency and immediacy, long-form content seems to be lessening in popularity. It appears that with each rapid technological leap forward, the demand for brief, easily digestible content grows. What is lost or gained by the move toward shorter forms? Which circumstances require shorter forms of writing, and which simply cannot be reduced? Through class discussions, written responses, and a longer essay, we will compare various longer forms with their shorter counterparts. Longer texts may range from books to feature films, while shorter works may include brief essays, short stories, and content developed for social media platforms. These assignments will help students better understand and practice a wide variety of forms while considering the rhetorical impact of length.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Wellington, Shalima Z
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In today's digital age, the communication of information across various fields—including public health, medicine, STEM, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities—is increasingly mediated by digital platforms and networks such as social media, websites, mobile apps, and interactive tools. This course introduces students to the principles and practices of digital rhetoric, exploring how these principles shape both communication and writing across a wide range of contexts, from health and medicine to technology, science, culture, and society. Throughout the course, students will develop critical thinking, writing skills, and digital literacy to analyze and produce digital content that is credible, accessible, effective, and responsive to diverse audiences. These objectives will be achieved through readings, discussions, weekly short writing tasks, and three major writing assignments—a critical analysis, the creation of a digital message, and a research paper on a chosen topic—allowing students to apply digital rhetoric across a variety of professional and public contexts.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Cui, Wenqi
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In today's digital age, the communication of information across various fields—including public health, medicine, STEM, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities—is increasingly mediated by digital platforms and networks such as social media, websites, mobile apps, and interactive tools. This course introduces students to the principles and practices of digital rhetoric, exploring how these principles shape both communication and writing across a wide range of contexts, from health and medicine to technology, science, culture, and society. Throughout the course, students will develop critical thinking, writing skills, and digital literacy to analyze and produce digital content that is credible, accessible, effective, and responsive to diverse audiences. These objectives will be achieved through readings, discussions, weekly short writing tasks, and three major writing assignments—a critical analysis, the creation of a digital message, and a research paper on a chosen topic—allowing students to apply digital rhetoric across a variety of professional and public contexts.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Cui, Wenqi
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 11/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music does go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll listen to and write about music accompanying apocalypses of all sorts. Over the semester, you'll be given opportunities to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, performance, or context, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing focusing on either a subgenre of apocalyptic music and the rhetoric that it employs, or an apocalypse playlist with critical commentary from you as its curator. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay: you’ll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient those experiences toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music does go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll listen to and write about music accompanying apocalypses of all sorts. Over the semester, you'll be given opportunities to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, performance, or context, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing focusing on either a subgenre of apocalyptic music and the rhetoric that it employs, or an apocalypse playlist with critical commentary from you as its curator. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay: you’ll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient those experiences toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: MW 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a... killer soundtrack? What music does go well with an apocalypse? A song mourning the world that soon won't be? A triumphant song about making it through world-ending events? Maybe even something whose upbeat, poppy tone sounds remarkably out of step with its occasion? In this course, we'll listen to and write about music accompanying apocalypses of all sorts. Over the semester, you'll be given opportunities to write about songs of your choosing (with approval) using a series of writing genres over the course of three major projects. In our first project, you'll critically analyze a song whose lyrics, composition, performance, or context, strike you as strange or compelling. Our second project offers the choice of creating a piece of public writing focusing on either a subgenre of apocalyptic music and the rhetoric that it employs, or an apocalypse playlist with critical commentary from you as its curator. Finally, we will end the semester with a reflective essay: you’ll be asked to look back on your experiences listening, writing, and thinking in order to reorient those experiences toward future possibilities.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Students in this class will examine and research how medical systems and communities create and recreate networks of organ donors and recipients. Working with outreach educators and curriculum developers at the Maryland Science Center (MSC), students will learn how to explain complex STEM ideas and theories using effective lessons and projects for students and adults alike. In order to better understand the contemporary organ transplant system and the role infectious diseases may play, students will meet with medical researchers and staff. In addition to writing a research paper and accommodating scientific findings for public audience, the class will develop a boardgame to communicate the organ transplant process. As a course aligned with Center for Social Concern at JHU, we will be closely collaborating with our community partners (MSC and the John G. Bartlett Specialty Practice) to learn about communication and community building.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Ludden, Jason
• Room: Maryland 202
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

If you are interested in writing and designing for public audiences and creatively circulating knowledge beyond the boundaries of campus, this class is for you. We will draw on the methods of the public humanities to learn how to convey to public audiences the complex problems and enduring questions you care most about—whether they’re from philosophy, history, literature, and art, or medicine, science, engineering, and math, or other origins entirely. Together, we will explore how the humanities provide us with the tools for living in a complex world, interacting in our communities, and informing and influencing the public. Through case studies, guest lectures, and direct public engagement, we will explore how to tell important cultural stories, present persuasive and meaningful knowledge, and make visible the multiple histories of our society. The primary work of this course will be a series of inventive and analytical writing projects that build towards a prototype of your own public project on a subject and in a form of your choice. All ideas are welcome: podcasts, films, op-eds, social media campaigns, zines, digital projects, and more. This class is your chance to take intriguing, sticky ideas from your academic work, personal life, or civic commitments and transform them into something that could change the world. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Pavesich, Matthew
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course offers a community-engaged approach to writing and public health, focusing on harm reduction strategies related to drug use in Baltimore City. Developed in collaboration with a local harm reduction nonprofit, students will explore the intersections of public health, policy, and community outreach, with an emphasis on addressing substance use beyond alcohol. Through critical reflections, interviews, social media campaigns, and community needs assessments, and other communication projects, students will engage with harm reduction principles and learn to translate them into educational tools for both the broader Baltimore community and the campus population. Working with the university’s Office of Health Promotion and Well-Being, students will develop educational materials on harm reduction for dissemination through social media, blog posts, and in-person events. The course invites students to explore innovative approaches to harm reduction education, integrating emerging trends in substance availability and evolving motivations for use. Students will contribute to local harm reduction efforts by supporting the work of the nonprofit partner in Baltimore City, while also developing strategies to engage the campus community. Through experiential learning, students will examine how writing can drive meaningful change and influence public health outcomes. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Devenot, Nese Lisa
• Room:  
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): CSC-CE

How do you take the complexity of health research, data, and policy and make it meaningful to the people it most affects? In this course, students will collaborate with a local public health organization to develop communication materials that help bridge gaps left by cuts to public health funding. Together, we will explore how public writing—such as infographics, social media campaigns, posters, or other community-facing materials—can make vital information accessible, usable, and impactful. This course is especially valuable for public health majors who want to expand beyond quantitative methods to develop qualitative, people-centered skills: crafting messages that reach real audiences, addressing issues of equity and access, and practicing communication as a form of public care. By the end of the semester, students will not only gain practical experience in multimodal communication but also learn how writing can serve as a critical tool in promoting health and wellbeing. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Fusilier, Lauren
• Room: BLC 4040
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): CSC-CE

Who didn’t feel chills each time Blue Ivy appeared on the ​​Renaissance stage as Beyoncé sings, “This that kinfolk, this that skinfolk, This that war, this that bloodline on the frontline, ready for war,” in her song “My Power?” Beyoncé, a rhetorical Queen herself, positions Blue Ivy to claim her power by countering the years of cruel insults she has endured from the public and social media alike, and also Beyoncé’s performance refutes motherhood tropes, the Matriarch, the Welfare Mother, and the Jezebel. In this space, we’ll center mothers as rhetorical subjects and agents to explore the various subtopics under the umbrella of the rhetoric of motherhood in the afterlife of slavery. You’re invited to listen to, read, research, and enter conversations surrounding motherhood rhetoric. Potential authors include Patricia Hill Collins, Brittany Cooper, Saidiya Hartman, Jennifer Nash, and Claudia Rankine. Students at the sophomore level and above are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Gilman 217
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course focuses on writing with/for/about natural resource issues and scientific research. This writing class prepares students for travel to Sri Lanka, in the summer of 2026, to study Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) while learning about the health of communities around Wasgamuwa National Park. During the spring of 2026, we’ll work with community collaborators in the Baltimore area to address their content production needs and identify spaces and places for text production/revision while also learning about HEC and Sri Lanka. Additionally, we’ll explore ethical representations of data and synthesize complex arguments into public facing documents. In late May of 2026, we will travel to Sri Lanka for two weeks to work alongside the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society (SLWCS) – a non-governmental organization committed to saving elephants by helping people – in the Mahaweli Development Project (MDP): a key agricultural region, which has a high rate of both HEC and chronic kidney disease. Students will spend their mornings mapping elephant movements and surveying farmers about elephant related incidences. We’ll also meet with faculty and researchers from the University of Colombo, University of Peradeniya, American Institute for Sri Lanka Studies, and other organizations; these hosted workshops will expose students to new research networks, contemporary scholarship, and help them develop an understanding of collaboration and global scholarship. Additionally, we’ll visit sites of ecological and historical importance. By the end of the trip, students will have worked with GIS databases and technology, sociology and anthropology field methods, and the process of community and public engaged research. After our return from Sri Lanka, students will propose their own research project. Enrollment by permission only. Application required; email [email protected]. Commitment to 2 credit-course in Summer 2026 required.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Ludden, Jason
• Room:  
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR