Can music education and youth instrumental ensembles fortify democracy? How? In this community-engaged course, students will work with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra OrchKids Program, an in-school and after-school music program that “provides Baltimore youth with equitable access to community-based, high-quality music instruction and programming that teaches musical and social skills transferable to all areas of their lives.” Along the way, students will write individually and collaboratively to pursue big questions connected to preK-12 education. For instance, we’ll explore how music-making affects kids developmentally; we’ll analyze the cultural contradiction of music as a defining feature of everyday life (ABCs, grocery stores, ringtones) at the same time that it is a precariously funded, extracurricular subject. Authors ranging from Danielle Allen to Leon Botstein will inform our inquiry. Students will write in a range of genres with varying audiences, including close textual analysis and argument; field notes and reflections; op-eds and other forms of persuasive appeal; presentations; and creative nonfiction. Throughout, we will discuss and rehearse writing as an intellectual, social, and always emerging practice. No musical background is needed; all are welcome. Many thanks to the Center for Social Concern for its support of this project.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Brodsky, Anne-Elizabeth Murdy
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Current CDC data states, that Black women are “three to four times more likely to die during or after delivery than are white women.” In this first-year writing course, we will explore Black women’s historical and contemporary birth narratives to question how their history of enslavement, and medical racism continues to inform their birthing realities. Through course readings, discussions, and workshops we will question the varied ways the delegitimization of Black midwives, Black women’s community practices, and contemporary advocates for reproductive and birthing justice, have impacted Black women’s care within and outside of medical institutions. Students will write in a range of genres including personal narratives and/or auto ethnographies, 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 or a multimodal composition 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 Harriet Jacobs, Margaret Charles Smith, Assata Shakur, Tressie Cottom, Nikky Finney, Beyonce, and reproductive justice advocate, Loretta Ross.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Wright, Lisa E.
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• 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: MWF 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Vinyard, Deirdre Will
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What arguments about vaccination are circulating in the public sphere today? As public health officials and medical providers seek to encourage vaccination, what kinds of appeals are likely to succeed, and which are likely to fall flat—or even backfire? Why and how do discussions of vaccination evoke such strong feelings? In this course, we will collectively explore these questions, drawing on tools from the field of rhetoric. As you examine the audience, purpose, context, and style of texts concerning vaccination, you will derive strategies you can apply to your own writing, and practice communicating about science to diverse audiences.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Wilbanks, Rebecca
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Playing chess, writing novels, making art—as headlines claim almost daily, whatever humans used to be good at, A.I. can now do better. To what extent can human labor and creativity be automated, and where will that leave us? How have people thought about these questions in the past and how are they thinking about them today? Why bother learning to write if text generators can do it for us? This course asks students to imagine a world in which A.I. makes writing courses obsolete. By producing argumentative essays, policy memos, and group projects, students will develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they explore the effects of A.I. not just in theory but in practice. Across all assignments, students will experiment with using text-generators like TPG-3 to do their writing for them.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lewis, Alex
• Room: Bloomberg 178
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What does it mean to be a person? This question is increasingly pressing in debates about the status and rights of nonhumans, ranging from animals to corporations to AI to rivers and forests. We will explore these debates and how they relate to each other. What is the significance of personhood when understood to include such diverse nonhumans, and does a broader understanding of its meaning destabilize human exceptionalism or reaffirm it? To what extent might personhood engender equality, kinship, or perceived likeness across humans and nonhumans and, if so, with what implications? Writing will be at the heart of our class. Across a series of writing assignments, we will study and write in the genres that we discover within these debates, including scholarly arguments, personal reflection, legal definitions, and works of advocacy. Throughout the course, we will explore connections between writing and personhood.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: O'Connor, Marisa T
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What does it mean to be a person? This question is increasingly pressing in debates about the status and rights of nonhumans, ranging from animals to corporations to AI to rivers and forests. We will explore these debates and how they relate to each other. What is the significance of personhood when understood to include such diverse nonhumans, and does a broader understanding of its meaning destabilize human exceptionalism or reaffirm it? To what extent might personhood engender equality, kinship, or perceived likeness across humans and nonhumans and, if so, with what implications? Writing will be at the heart of our class. Across a series of writing assignments, we will study and write in the genres that we discover within these debates, including scholarly arguments, personal reflection, legal definitions, and works of advocacy. Throughout the course, we will explore connections between writing and personhood.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: O'Connor, Marisa T
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Animals are instructive. When we study animals, their biological makeups and creaturely habits, we do so with hopes of learning something about them. At the same time, such investigations often betray an interest in our human selves. The study of animals, in scientific and literary laboratories alike, quickly turns to acts of self-discovery: not what it means to be animal, exactly, but what it means to be human-animals. So what more could we learn by cultivating new strategies for listening and new languages for communicating with and about animals? Over the course of the semester, we will examine and respond to the rhetorical settings of works (premodern and modern, fictional and factual) in which animals are tasked with teaching lessons and testing the ethical obligations of their human audiences. We will approach composition 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.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Animals are instructive. When we study animals, their biological makeups and creaturely habits, we do so with hopes of learning something about them. At the same time, such investigations often betray an interest in our human selves. The study of animals, in scientific and literary laboratories alike, quickly turns to acts of self-discovery: not what it means to be animal, exactly, but what it means to be human-animals. So what more could we learn by cultivating new strategies for listening and new languages for communicating with and about animals? Over the course of the semester, we will examine and respond to the rhetorical settings of works (premodern and modern, fictional and factual) in which animals are tasked with teaching lessons and testing the ethical obligations of their human audiences. We will approach composition 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.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Russell, Arthur J
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What do you love? Do you love your family? Your friends? Do you love hiking in the mountains, the music of Mozart, the idea of justice? We use the word “love” in all these contexts and more, but a satisfactory, shared understanding of the term is elusive. Philosophers have disagreed about its meaning for thousands of years. What is clear is that love plays a significant role in our lives. In this course, we will consider various philosophical accounts of love, and see how they measure up to our experience and other representations of love. We will explore the concept through writing; students can expect a variety of writing assignments, including academic essays, opinion pieces, and collaborative design projects. These assignments will provide the structure for us to analyze different genres of writing, and to reflect on communicating with various audiences, all while exploring the perplexing human phenomenon, love.

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

What do you love? Do you love your family? Your friends? Do you love hiking in the mountains, the music of Mozart, the idea of justice? We use the word “love” in all these contexts and more, but a satisfactory, shared understanding of the term is elusive. Philosophers have disagreed about its meaning for thousands of years. What is clear is that love plays a significant role in our lives. In this course, we will consider various philosophical accounts of love, and see how they measure up to our experience and other representations of love. We will explore the concept through writing; students can expect a variety of writing assignments, including academic essays, opinion pieces, and collaborative design projects. These assignments will provide the structure for us to analyze different genres of writing, and to reflect on communicating with various audiences, all while exploring the perplexing human phenomenon, love.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Koullas, Sandy Gillian
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

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. They will employ writing as a process of inquiry, which enables them to engage in the thoughts and work of others. Students will analyze and respond to a variety of texts: from public signage, social media posts, and other messages that they encounter on a daily basis, to formal publications and scholarly arguments. Students will practice writing in these diverse genres as they interrogate the boundaries between the Homewood campus and Baltimore city. Through writing, students will investigate an aspect of the historical, economic, and political relationships between Baltimore and Hopkins that might contribute to or call into question the notion of a Hopkins Bubble. 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 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

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. They will employ writing as a process of inquiry, which enables them to engage in the thoughts and work of others. Students will analyze and respond to a variety of texts: from public signage, social media posts, and other messages that they encounter on a daily basis, to formal publications and scholarly arguments. Students will practice writing in these diverse genres as they interrogate the boundaries between the Homewood campus and Baltimore city. Through writing, students will investigate an aspect of the historical, economic, and political relationships between Baltimore and Hopkins that might contribute to or call into question the notion of a Hopkins Bubble. 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 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Speller, Mo Elsmere Longley
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In a 2012 interview with the New York Times, American critic M.H. Abrams was asked, “Why study literature?” Abrams answered, because “it enables you to live the lives of other people.” But how does a master of short stories open a window to his or her characters’ thoughts and feelings? How does the writer, as Abrams suggests, draw us into other lives? In this class, students will explore these questions through their own writings across different modes and styles. Writing projects will range from evaluating another critic’s interpretation of how a story brings its characters to life to writing your own autobiographical narrative. Our readings will feature the work of some of the masters of contemporary American short stories including Joyce Carol Oates, Gish Jen, Richard Ford, Denis Johnson, Jennifer Egan, ZZ Packer, James Salter, George Saunders, Lorrie Moore, Edward P. Jones, David Foster Wallace, and Lydia Davis.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Berger, Donald W
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this first-year seminar, students will be asked to examine and record how their thoughts, beliefs, and impressions of the world are informed by various forms of visual representation. As in other writing-intensive courses, we’ll compose a variety of written works for a range of potential audiences, and we'll focus our time and attention on the creation and reception of art—including film, painting, sculpture, dance, performance art, architecture, and emerging artistic media—and will investigate the various ways that writers have critically, creatively, and analytically approached art, artists, and art-making practices. We’ll pay particular attention to the way that art and culture intersect, and investigate various elements of visual culture. The course will include visits to local art institutions and museums, reading and writing analysis and criticism, including popular reviews, hybrid forms of prose, ekphrastic pieces, and more formal academic criticism. Together, we'll attempt to test John Berger's claim that "the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled" while looking closely at and responding to images from the fine arts, advertisements, and social media.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Brown, Nate A
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this first-year seminar, students will be asked to examine and record how their thoughts, beliefs, and impressions of the world are informed by various forms of visual representation. As in other writing-intensive courses, we’ll compose a variety of written works for a range of potential audiences, and we'll focus our time and attention on the creation and reception of art—including film, painting, sculpture, dance, performance art, architecture, and emerging artistic media—and will investigate the various ways that writers have critically, creatively, and analytically approached art, artists, and art-making practices. We’ll pay particular attention to the way that art and culture intersect, and investigate various elements of visual culture. The course will include visits to local art institutions and museums, reading and writing analysis and criticism, including popular reviews, hybrid forms of prose, ekphrastic pieces, and more formal academic criticism. Together, we'll attempt to test John Berger's claim that "the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled" while looking closely at and responding to images from the fine arts, advertisements, and social media.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Brown, Nate A
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• 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 road’s impact on America’s national identity, 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 book reviews 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 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Wexler, Anthony
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• 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 road’s impact on America’s national identity, 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 book reviews 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 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Wexler, Anthony
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course, developed in collaboration with the Sheridan Librarians and other archival specialists, expands the classroom space to include the library and archival spaces at Hopkins—resources usually unavailable to first-year students. 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—this may be the course for you. Throughout the semester, students will draw on library resources to write for different audiences in a range of genres. For example, one project will center on Special Collections, the space in the library dedicated to collecting and preserving rare books, documents, and photographs, including forgeries. In another assignment, we’ll examine the role of the library in cultivating an active intellectual life, visiting the George Peabody Library, the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room (in Gilman Hall), and the Welch Medical Library. Our final project is “object-based”: students will create and curate a digital exhibition based on research in campus spaces that preserve and collect objects. These include the University Campus Collection, the Chesney Archives (archival repository for Hopkins Medicine, Nursing and Public Health), and the Archaeological Museum.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In 1988, Baltimore’s first African-American mayor, Kurt Schmoke, declared Baltimore the “city that reads.” Baltimore has always been a city that writes, too, including luminaries like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and D. Watkins. But “writing” includes far more than the incredible books and essays written by these literary stars– and much more than the traditional analysis essays that most students write before they get to college. We write in all kinds of ways in order to live our lives: we write in text messages and social media to connect with loved ones and the wider world; we write in the classroom and outside of it to learn new knowledge and skills; we write ourselves into new futures by composing application essays, resumes, and more. Writing is part of the very fabric of our lives, and that’s why this Reintroduction to Writing will explore the role of writing in our lives, campus life at JHU, and the lives of Baltimore’s residents. And we’ll use the broadest possible definition of writing as we do so. This class will be in partnership, via JHU’s Center for Social Concern, with Wide Angle Youth Media (https://www.wideanglemedia.org), an organization dedicated to “cultivating and amplifying the voices of Baltimore youth through the media arts.” In partnership with WAYM, we’ll explore the ways that writing fuels the work of the organization, interacts with the residents of Baltimore, and knits together social life in this great city. Students in this class can expect to write both traditional academic essays and in other forms such as presentations, proposals, case studies, social media campaigns, and more. There will be lots of freedom to choose what to write, whom to write to, and why to write. After all, the stakes are high – these are our lives we’re talking about.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Pavesich, Matthew
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Cases of tedium, genius, demonic possessions and religious ecstasy have consistently appeared in the historical record. In pre-modern Europe, people with depression were sometimes believed to be suffering from a bodily imbalance or plagued by a midday demon, while those given to delirium were either consorting with or possessed by spirits. Through writing, this course will consider how the early modern world understood and responded to these various forms of mental or emotional states. Through close readings of texts such as medical treatises and biographies of saints, we will focus in particular on how medicine and religion defined conditions such as ennui, listlessness, and insanity. We will also analyze contemporary forms, including museum exhibits and films, and how they comment or expand our ideas about these conditions. Students will study and write in a variety of genres including response papers, a book review, a film review, and a longer critique essay. At the end of the course, the student will have a portfolio of written works demonstrating skill in academic and public-facing writing.

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

This course will consider how the early modern world understood melancholy and madness. We will focus in particular on how religion and medicine gave meaning to various forms of mental or emotional states, such as malaise, tedium, genius and delirium. Included in this category are demonic possession and religious ecstasy. We will examine the conditions that may have given rise to these states, and how people understood and responded to them. Throughout the semester, we will be engaging with primary and secondary documents, images and other forms of media. Students will be expected to write short reaction papers, a long semester paper, a book review and a film review.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Galasi, Francis
• Room: Croft Hall B32
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Cases of tedium, genius, demonic possessions and religious ecstasy have consistently appeared in the historical record. In pre-modern Europe, people with depression were sometimes believed to be suffering from a bodily imbalance or plagued by a midday demon, while those given to delirium were either consorting with or possessed by spirits. Through writing, this course will consider how the early modern world understood and responded to these various forms of mental or emotional states. Through close readings of texts such as medical treatises and biographies of saints, we will focus in particular on how medicine and religion defined conditions such as ennui, listlessness, and insanity. We will also analyze contemporary forms, including museum exhibits and films, and how they comment or expand our ideas about these conditions. Students will study and write in a variety of genres including response papers, a book review, a film review, and a longer critique essay. At the end of the course, the student will have a portfolio of written works demonstrating skill in academic and public-facing writing.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Galasi, Francis
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

From “essential workers” and resurgent unions to automation, basic income, and “The Great Resignation”: work is once again at the center of a broad public conversation. This course takes a closer look at the variety of ways people in the past and present have used writing to establish and contest the meaning and definition of work, including to raise questions about whose experiences count in those definitions. We will examine a diverse collection of writings—from poems, novels, and journalism that try to represent, and make sense of, the experience of working, to analytical essays that aim to make future predictions about work, to workers’ own writing about their work. Assignments are designed to allow students to try writing in a range of genres, including potentially: short exploratory writing to define a concept related to work, an argumentative essay that contributes to a scholarly or public conversation about work, and a personal narrative inquiring into students’ own relationship to work. Along the way, we will investigate writing itself as a scene of work: asking what kind of work writing is, and what is at stake in it.

• Days/Times: MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Begg, Aaron
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

From “essential workers” and resurgent unions, to automation, basic income, and “The Great Resignation,” work—and the meaning of work—is once again at the center of a broad public conversation. But how do we define work and its significance, and whose experiences count in those definitions? In this course, we will begin by holding that question open, and move toward what “work” means for us through encountering and examining, in a variety of genres, writing about work. Reading novels and poems that struggle to represent work and its subjective experiences, analyses of the present and future of work, and workers’ inquiries into their own work, students will explore what work means, and what it means to work, in the 21st century. Along the way, we will investigate writing itself as a scene of work: asking what kind of work writing is, and what is at stake in it. Writing in a range of genres, students will explore connections that link both work and writing as sites of collective transformation.

• Days/Times: MWF 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Begg, Aaron
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

From “essential workers” and resurgent unions to automation, basic income, and “The Great Resignation”: work is once again at the center of a broad public conversation. This course takes a closer look at the variety of ways people in the past and present have used writing to establish and contest the meaning and definition of work, including to raise questions about whose experiences count in those definitions. We will examine a diverse collection of writings—from poems, novels, and journalism that try to represent, and make sense of, the experience of working, to analytical essays that aim to make future predictions about work, to workers’ own writing about their work. Assignments are designed to allow students to try writing in a range of genres, including potentially: short exploratory writing to define a concept related to work, an argumentative essay that contributes to a scholarly or public conversation about work, and a personal narrative inquiring into students’ own relationship to work. Along the way, we will investigate writing itself as a scene of work: asking what kind of work writing is, and what is at stake in it.

• Days/Times: MWF 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Begg, Aaron
• Room: Shaffer 202
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this writing course, students will confront head-scratching philosophical paradoxes. By writing about these challenging, self-contained, and often slippery ideas in different expository and critical styles students will hone a writing and rhetorical skillset that is especially well suited to presenting abstract ideas in a variety of contexts. Every three weeks, we will engage a new paradox: some concern free will and chance; some concern morality, vagueness, and indeterminacy; some relate to the nature of space, time, and motion; and some concern the nature of logic, language, and truth itself. Four kinds of assignments will help us untangle and explore these paradoxes: (1) regular definitional exercises, where students write the equivalent of a short encyclopedia entry defining some crucial term involved in the paradox discussed in class; (2) informal dialogues, written collaboratively with other classmates, that show how these paradoxes can arise in ordinary life; (3) jokes or short comical writings exhibiting the paradoxes in unexpected and amusing ways; and (4) a traditional academic essay.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Teague, Richard John
• Room: Hodson 313
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

To whom does an ancient artifact belong? Do the descendants of its creator have the right to possess it? Can it be bought and sold, or does it belong to a people, a nation, or to all of humanity? The last few decades have seen countless controversies surrounding how scholars and scientists engage with the material remains of our distant past, controversies that have played out both in academic and in public writing, both in museums and in courtrooms; the treatment of human remains, scholarly publication of looted objects, and the repatriation of potentially stolen antiquities provide just some examples. In this course, students will develop and express their opinions about these issues by writing in a variety of genres, including a personal narrative, an academic essay, a formal debate, a policy document, and an op-ed. The course aims to equip students with the tools to be life-long participants in robust yet respectful debates about controversial and emotional topics in a democracy. It will appeal to students interested in law, ethical questions, ancient civilizations, and in expressing their opinion across different genres and media. Readings include the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, former Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri, legal scholar John Henry Merryman, and Native American activist Steve Russell. No prior knowledge of ancient history or law is required or expected; all are welcome.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Essam, Richard James Llewellyn
• Room: Gilman 381
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this course we will explore and write about what it means to be embodied beings in this world. We will examine concepts and conceptions of the human body through time and space, starting from Homeric epics and ending with contemporary literature. Some of the questions we will ask are: What are bodies made of, and how does the material world around us shape our understanding of the human body? How have human (and non-human) bodies been used as metaphors, models, and measures of other objects, including the world as a whole? The topic of the course will also help us think about writing as a human, and therefore embodied, activity that stretches inward from our fingertips to our very sense of self. By the end of the semester, you will learn to approach writing as a way of knowing and as a way of thinking, a versatile process that can take as many different forms as there are writers (and readers). You will write in a variety of genres and work with sources in different media, including audiovisual materials and museum objects. Your writing will include, but not be limited to, the following genres: academic essay, book review, Twitter thread, and response paper. You will also curate a virtual exhibition using objects from local museums that bear upon the subject of the course, as well as organize a roundtable discussion in which you present the exhibition, its scope and its goals.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Asuni, Michele
• Room: Gilman 219
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this course we will explore and write about what it means to be embodied beings in this world. We will examine concepts and conceptions of the human body through time and space, starting from Homeric epics and ending with contemporary literature. Some of the questions we will ask are: What are bodies made of, and how does the material world around us shape our understanding of the human body? How have human (and non-human) bodies been used as metaphors, models, and measures of other objects, including the world as a whole? The topic of the course will also help us think about writing as a human, and therefore embodied, activity that stretches inward from our fingertips to our very sense of self. By the end of the semester, you will learn to approach writing as a way of knowing and as a way of thinking, a versatile process that can take as many different forms as there are writers (and readers). You will write in a variety of genres and work with sources in different media, including audiovisual materials and museum objects. Your writing will include, but not be limited to, the following genres: academic essay, book review, Twitter thread, and response paper. You will also curate a virtual exhibition using objects from local museums that bear upon the subject of the course, as well as organize a roundtable discussion in which you present the exhibition, its scope and its goals.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Asuni, Michele
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this course we will explore and write about what it means to be embodied beings in this world. We will examine concepts and conceptions of the human body through time and space, starting from Homeric epics and ending with contemporary literature. Some of the questions we will ask are: What are bodies made of, and how does the material world around us shape our understanding of the human body? How have human (and non-human) bodies been used as metaphors, models, and measures of other objects, including the world as a whole? The topic of the course will also help us think about writing as a human, and therefore embodied, activity that stretches inward from our fingertips to our very sense of self. By the end of the semester, you will learn to approach writing as a way of knowing and as a way of thinking, a versatile process that can take as many different forms as there are writers (and readers). You will write in a variety of genres and work with sources in different media, including audiovisual materials and museum objects. Your writing will include, but not be limited to, the following genres: academic essay, book review, Twitter thread, and response paper. You will also curate a virtual exhibition using objects from local museums that bear upon the subject of the course, as well as organize a roundtable discussion in which you present the exhibition, its scope and its goals.

• Days/Times: TTh 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Asuni, Michele
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• 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 nineteenth century treatise On Liberty. You write a short essay that engages with Mill’s view that speech is essential to the pursuit of truth. We then read a sample of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence to get a sense of how the law defines the pivotal difference between speech and action. You’ll engage with some scholarly critics on the question of how the law defines “harm.” Finally, you are invited to research a contemporary free speech issue that interests you. Using online resources like the Free Speech Project and the Dangerous Speech Project you will map a particular controversy and produce a written report of your findings. Topics include hate speech, cancel culture, the regulation of online speech, and more.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• 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 nineteenth century treatise On Liberty. You write a short essay that engages with Mill’s view that speech is essential to the pursuit of truth. We then read a sample of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence to get a sense of how the law defines the pivotal difference between speech and action. You’ll engage with some scholarly critics on the question of how the law defines “harm.” Finally, you are invited to research a contemporary free speech issue that interests you. Using online resources like the Free Speech Project and the Dangerous Speech Project you will map a particular controversy and produce a written report of your findings. Topics include hate speech, cancel culture, the regulation of online speech, and more.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Oppel, George
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Universities hold a place like no other in American public discourse—they are mythologized in sunny campus novels, lambasted in fiery political speeches, and their value for money is calculated down to the last penny of expected future earnings. In this class, students will engage with a broad spectrum of literature, journalism, and academic and informal writing which all try to answer the question: just what is a university for, anyway? Universities often pride themselves as engines of truth, social mobility, and civic engagement, while to their critics universities can be financially-exploitative sites of elitism, structural racism, and inequity. Students will explore these contrasts in writing assignments across a range of genres, analyzing the philosophy, economics, and rhetoric of higher education, reflecting on their own experiences, and adding their own voices to significant public conversations. Students will gain the tools to engage different audiences through their writing, and weigh in to academic debates, campus issues, and public controversies. Special attention will be paid to Johns Hopkins University itself and its deep and sometimes fractious relationship with the citizens and institutions of Baltimore. Writing about universities offers a chance to acclimate to a range of compositional practices, develop your own skills, and look upon the university with a new and broadened perspective.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Shallit, Jonah Forest Lubiw
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is scientific knowledge? Who creates it, controls it, and benefits from it? What does it mean to “decolonize” something? Math, science, and technology are commonly described as tools, yet these overlapping disciplines often operate as black boxes whose broad social applications are hidden and whose environmental consequences may be too diffuse to accurately predict. This writing class will consider these topics from a variety of rhetorical genres including podcasts, YouTube videos, and academic articles. In a series of writing exercises that range from brief weekly written responses, a traditional essay, and a rhetorical analysis in a medium of their choosing, students will be given the opportunity to respond to questions of how math, science, and technology influence their everyday world.

• Days/Times: MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Doherty, Nathanael Joseph
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Universities hold a place like no other in American public discourse—they are mythologized in sunny campus novels, lambasted in fiery political speeches, and their value for money is calculated down to the last penny of expected future earnings. In this class, students will engage with a broad spectrum of literature, journalism, and academic and informal writing which all try to answer the question: just what is a university for, anyway? Universities often pride themselves as engines of truth, social mobility, and civic engagement, while to their critics universities can be financially-exploitative sites of elitism, structural racism, and inequity. Students will explore these contrasts in writing assignments across a range of genres, analyzing the philosophy, economics, and rhetoric of higher education, reflecting on their own experiences, and adding their own voices to significant public conversations. Students will gain the tools to engage different audiences through their writing, and weigh in to academic debates, campus issues, and public controversies. Special attention will be paid to Johns Hopkins University itself and its deep and sometimes fractious relationship with the citizens and institutions of Baltimore. Writing about universities offers a chance to acclimate to a range of compositional practices, develop your own skills, and look upon the university with a new and broadened perspective.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Doherty, Nathanael Joseph
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Universities hold a place like no other in American public discourse—they are mythologized in sunny campus novels, lambasted in fiery political speeches, and their value for money is calculated down to the last penny of expected future earnings. In this class, students will engage with a broad spectrum of literature, journalism, and academic and informal writing which all try to answer the question: just what is a university for, anyway? Universities often pride themselves as engines of truth, social mobility, and civic engagement, while to their critics universities can be financially-exploitative sites of elitism, structural racism, and inequity. Students will explore these contrasts in writing assignments across a range of genres, analyzing the philosophy, economics, and rhetoric of higher education, reflecting on their own experiences, and adding their own voices to significant public conversations. Students will gain the tools to engage different audiences through their writing, and weigh in to academic debates, campus issues, and public controversies. Special attention will be paid to Johns Hopkins University itself and its deep and sometimes fractious relationship with the citizens and institutions of Baltimore. Writing about universities offers a chance to acclimate to a range of compositional practices, develop your own skills, and look upon the university with a new and broadened perspective.

• Days/Times: WF 6:00PM - 7:15PM
• Instructor: Doherty, Nathanael Joseph
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Bullshit is all around us–in advertising, politics, social media, everyday conversation, job applications, lectures, and eulogies. It is often involved in what we say to others as well as what we take others–our teachers, friends, and family members among them–to be saying to us. But what is bullshit–and more importantly, what does it tell us about our intentions in communicating with others? This first-year writing course leverages the idea of bullshit as an introduction to rhetoric, broadly understood as the study of how language induces certain types of action, or implants certain impressions, in a particular audience. Basing our investigation on a close reading of Harry Frankfurt’s influential essay "On Bullshit," our course will examine the connection between writing and the aims and expectations surrounding truth-telling and sincerity. Four types of assignments will help students develop their writing, research, and conceptual skills: (1) a conceptual and critical elaboration of a single term (modeled on Frankfurt’s approach to analyzing the term “bullshit”); (2) a scavenging exercise to locate and document the rhetorical nature of found objects and bits of discourse outside the classroom; (3) an academic essay on an assigned topic relating to the theme of the course; and (4) group collaboration on a written discussion, podcast, blog, scientific literature review, model correspondence, or other open-ended project.

• Days/Times: MWF 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Gartenberg, Zachary M
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Bullshit is all around us–in advertising, politics, social media, everyday conversation, job applications, lectures, and eulogies. It is often involved in what we say to others as well as what we take others–our teachers, friends, and family members among them–to be saying to us. But what is bullshit–and more importantly, what does it tell us about our intentions in communicating with others? This first-year writing course leverages the idea of bullshit as an introduction to rhetoric, broadly understood as the study of how language induces certain types of action, or implants certain impressions, in a particular audience. Basing our investigation on a close reading of Harry Frankfurt’s influential essay "On Bullshit," our course will examine the connection between writing and the aims and expectations surrounding truth-telling and sincerity. Four types of assignments will help students develop their writing, research, and conceptual skills: (1) a conceptual and critical elaboration of a single term (modeled on Frankfurt’s approach to analyzing the term “bullshit”); (2) a scavenging exercise to locate and document the rhetorical nature of found objects and bits of discourse outside the classroom; (3) an academic essay on an assigned topic relating to the theme of the course; and (4) group collaboration on a written discussion, podcast, blog, scientific literature review, model correspondence, or other open-ended project.

• Days/Times: MWF 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Gartenberg, Zachary M
• Room: Croft Hall G02
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Bullshit is all around us–in advertising, politics, social media, everyday conversation, job applications, lectures, and eulogies. It is often involved in what we say to others as well as what we take others–our teachers, friends, and family members among them–to be saying to us. But what is bullshit–and more importantly, what does it tell us about our intentions in communicating with others? This first-year writing course leverages the idea of bullshit as an introduction to rhetoric, broadly understood as the study of how language induces certain types of action, or implants certain impressions, in a particular audience. Basing our investigation on a close reading of Harry Frankfurt’s influential essay "On Bullshit," our course will examine the connection between writing and the aims and expectations surrounding truth-telling and sincerity. Four types of assignments will help students develop their writing, research, and conceptual skills: (1) a conceptual and critical elaboration of a single term (modeled on Frankfurt’s approach to analyzing the term “bullshit”); (2) a scavenging exercise to locate and document the rhetorical nature of found objects and bits of discourse outside the classroom; (3) an academic essay on an assigned topic relating to the theme of the course; and (4) group collaboration on a written discussion, podcast, blog, scientific literature review, model correspondence, or other open-ended project.

• Days/Times: MWF 4:30PM - 5:20PM
• Instructor: Gartenberg, Zachary M
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Playing chess, writing novels, making art—as headlines claim almost daily, whatever humans used to be good at, A.I. can now do better. To what extent can human labor and creativity be automated, and where will that leave us? How have people thought about these questions in the past and how are they thinking about them today? Why bother learning to write if text generators can do it for us? This course asks students to imagine a world in which A.I. makes writing courses obsolete. By producing argumentative essays, policy memos, and group projects, students will develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they explore the effects of A.I. not just in theory but in practice. Across all assignments, students will experiment with using text-generators like TPG-3 to do their writing for them.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Lewis, Alex
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Playing chess, writing novels, making art—as headlines claim almost daily, whatever humans used to be good at, A.I. can now do better. To what extent can human labor and creativity be automated, and where will that leave us? How have people thought about these questions in the past and how are they thinking about them today? Why bother learning to write if text generators can do it for us? This course asks students to imagine a world in which A.I. makes writing courses obsolete. By producing argumentative essays, policy memos, and group projects, students will develop skills in critical thinking and communicating in different genres as they explore the effects of A.I. not just in theory but in practice. Across all assignments, students will experiment with using text-generators like TPG-3 to do their writing for them.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Lewis, Alex
• Room: Bloomberg 178
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Imagine yourself playing a new game that you’ve been waiting ages to pick up. The world feels expansive and full, and you have what seems like an endless array of options to choose from. You’re instructed to walk into a bar, and to be prepared for a deadly serious meeting—suddenly, your face disappears as the cutscene begins, leaving just your disembodied eyes and still-talking mouth floating in midair. All the while, the glitched conversation carries on as though nothing has happened, despite all dramatic tension having gone out the window. The ridiculousness of it all leaves you reeling. What are you to make of this? From an audience’s standpoint, textual worlds can often appear self-sufficient and whole. But occasionally, a world that seemed whole can betray unnoticed elements of its composition, complicating everything we thought we knew about its boundaries, scope, and limitations. In this course, we will write about moments of glitching and distortion in texts spanning several genres and mediums in order to see what we can learn about the composition of a text (whether literary, graphic, or in a videogame) when its seemingly stable boundaries suddenly become less certain. How do glitches affect our sense of a textual world? What might it mean when a text deliberately references a moment of world-breaking incoherence from a completely different genre or medium? And how might this knowledge influence our own compositional habits as we work to produce accessible writing for our own audiences? We will work to answer these questions with our own experiments in composition. Students will write analyses of visual distortion in works of art, organize group presentations on texts that reference glitches found in other mediums, produce accessible podcast episodes about world-breaking game glitches aimed at a casual audience, and pen persuasive essays pitched at professionals within our own disciplines.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Oliver, Xavier A
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

As we face the environmental crisis—born from failures to engage with nature in a way we might call “sustainable”—a debate has arisen, in many disciplines, of the best way to understand the natural world. The rhetorical terrain is fraught: historical arguments both justify the human domination of nature and present other possibilities, and in the present day, some argue that humans are an inextricable part of nature, others that there is a separation, and still others that we need another framework entirely. We’ll join this conversation by studying where we’ve been and how that's influenced where we are, and use these analyses to articulate our own reasoned thoughts on where we want our relationship with nature to go, with an acknowledgment of the high stakes (studies show that simply discussing topics like climate change, through writing and conversation alike, can have a measurable impact on policy). We’ll reach far and wide in our review of contemporary conversations on nature, from a study of current science journalism and public writing to the personal creative narratives of Wendell Berry to the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke. In terms of writing, students will focus on structure, and apply techniques for creating structured writing to four assignments, including an argumentative essay, a personal narrative, and an article, as well as smaller experimental assignments in a variety of other genres. We’ll end with a project that will investigate, and write about, environmental justice issues affecting the communities of Baltimore, particularly as they relate to the Environmental Human Rights movement; students will identify a problem and use the medium of their choice to argue for their personal solution.

• Days/Times: MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Fautsch, Carolina
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In an era when sophisticated algorithms mine data at unfathomable scales, the idea that we could learn anything new or important by simply wandering out into the real world with notepad in hand may seem outdated, even naive. So what is the value in directly engaging with the messiness of the real world and attempting to write something meaningful about the experience? This first-year writing course will explore “ethnographic” writing, rich contextual portraits of life rooted in firsthand experience. Writing ethnographically requires us to cultivate a radical openness to the world around us, to make room for the unexpected, and to hone our skills of noticing things we might otherwise take for granted. Because it can force us to challenge preconceived ideas and grapple with the complexity of the lived world and our place in it, ethnographic writing can help us to become more creative and nuanced thinkers, and more compassionate and responsible citizens. In this course we will engage with ethnographic writing across a range of genres including academic scholarship, journalism, and documentary film. We will explore how authors craft narratives and arguments from lived experience and how they connect these small-scale observations to larger concepts, theories, and histories. We will engage with the many thorny ethical questions that arise when studying and writing about the lives and social worlds of others, particularly across lines of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Throughout the course, students will have opportunities to practice ethnographic fieldwork, taking field notes and journaling about their experiences. Through a series of writing assignments, they will translate these experiences and insights into different written genres including personal narratives, academic essays, and op-eds.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Adams, Nat Johnson
• Room: Shriver Hall 001
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

In recent decades, a small but vocal minority has begun to call for systemic change in our treatment of nonhuman animals. Proposals range from calls for widespread reform of our use of animals in food, science, and other settings, to the total abolition of these practices. The conversation has gained prominence in both academic and non-academic circles, with contributions from such diverse sources as philosophers, journalists, and novelists. Discussions this topic are of both theoretical and personal relevance: they challenge us to contemplate the nature of our moral obligations to animals, and they carry implications for whether we should radically alter our social institutions and personal habits. But they do more than this: they also provoke us to consider the value of different forms of persuasion in shaping public opinion on a controversial topic. In this class, we consider different genres of writing and rhetoric and their role in the broader debate over what we owe to nonhuman animals. Students will write three major assignments in three different genres: an investigative piece that is geared towards a mainstream audience; an argumentative essay, written for an academic audience; and a third assignment in a genre of their choosing. Students will also be assigned a reflective essay towards the end of the semester.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Powell, Kevin Matthew
• Room: Bloomberg 172
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Current CDC data states, that Black women are “three to four times more likely to die during or after delivery than are white women.” In this first-year writing course, we will explore Black women’s historical and contemporary birth narratives to question how their history of enslavement, and medical racism continues to inform their birthing realities. Through course readings, discussions, and workshops we will question the varied ways the delegitimization of Black midwives, Black women’s community practices, and contemporary advocates for reproductive and birthing justice, have impacted Black women’s care within and outside of medical institutions. Students will write in a range of genres including personal narratives and/or auto ethnographies, 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 or a multimodal composition 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 Harriet Jacobs, Margaret Charles Smith, Assata Shakur, Tressie Cottom, Nikky Finney, Beyonce, and reproductive justice advocate, Loretta Ross.

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

This course, developed in collaboration with the Sheridan Librarians and other archival specialists, expands the classroom space to include the library and archival spaces at Hopkins—resources usually unavailable to first-year students. 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—this may be the course for you. Throughout the semester, students will draw on library resources to write for different audiences in a range of genres. For example, one project will center on Special Collections, the space in the library dedicated to collecting and preserving rare books, documents, and photographs, including forgeries. In another assignment, we’ll examine the role of the library in cultivating an active intellectual life, visiting the George Peabody Library, the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room (in Gilman Hall), and the Welch Medical Library. Our final project is “object-based”: students will create and curate a digital exhibition based on research in campus spaces that preserve and collect objects. These include the University Campus Collection, the Chesney Archives (archival repository for Hopkins Medicine, Nursing and Public Health), and the Archaeological Museum.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Hartmann-Villalta, Laura A
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What arguments about vaccination are circulating in the public sphere today? As public health officials and medical providers seek to encourage vaccination, what kinds of appeals are likely to succeed, and which are likely to fall flat—or even backfire? Why and how do discussions of vaccination evoke such strong feelings? In this course, we will collectively explore these questions, drawing on tools from the field of rhetoric. As you examine the audience, purpose, context, and style of texts concerning vaccination, you will derive strategies you can apply to your own writing, and practice communicating about science to diverse audiences.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Wilbanks, Rebecca
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a