Courses
Explore the University. Engage with people. Empower yourself. Chart your expedition at Hopkins. In this course for new and those returning from an LOA, students will explore Hopkins’ academic resources and opportunities to integrate their academic, career, and personal goals for college and beyond. Students will be exposed to topics including learning strategies, academic planning, and campus culture. Students will develop a personalized plan for success and make some new friends.
Students attend lectures by an interdepartmental group of Hopkins faculty and meet for discussion in smaller seminar groups; each of these seminars is led by one of the course faculty. In lectures, panels, multimedia presentations, and curatorial sessions among the University's rare book holdings, we will explore some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical traditions in Europe and the Americas. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of this course; authors for Fall 2020 include Homer, Plato, Dante, John Donne, George Herbert, Christina Rosetti, Mary Shelley, Friederick Nietzsche, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Frederick Douglass.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
In the midst of a global pandemic that has shifted the ways in which we move, work, and interact with others around the world, it is more important than ever to have a deeper understanding of how outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics have evolved. You’ll review select communicable (COVID-19, Ebola, Zika, and HIV) and non-communicable (diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, injury, and mental health) diseases in public health around the world. Examine the global burden of these diseases and the various forms of prevention efforts undertaken by global and national organizations. This program will use a combination of lecture, discussion, and student presentation format to encourage broad participation.
Memoir is an adept genre for expressing the sociological through the personal; this course will use memoirs to examine health care disparities. The course materials will be interwoven with visits from guest speakers who are either practicing clinicians or research scientists grappling with these same inequities. For example, when we address gender and concepts of masculinity and sexuality, we will have a discussion with a gender-reassignment surgeon. Every text will have a corresponding professional speaker. There will be a particular emphasis on medical memories, contemporary debates, and experiences that critically examine how factors such as race, gender identity, and ability impact our humanity and our health outcomes.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
This course will introduce students to basic concepts in economics, political science and sociology relevant to the study of social problems and the programs designed to remedy them. It will address the many inequalities in access to education and health care, unequal treatment in the criminal justice system, disparities in income and wealth, and differential access to political power. The focus will be on designing effective policies at the national and local level to address these pressing issues. This course is open to all students, but will be required for the new Social Policy Minor. The course is also recommended for students who are interested in law school, medical school, programs in public health, and graduate school in related social science fields. This course does not count as one of the required courses for the Economics major or minor, but it is required for the Social Policy Minor. Cross list with Sociology, Economics and Political Science. Freshman, Sophomore and Juniors only.
Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
This course introduces students and researchers from humanities disciplines to ideas and practices from the computational sciences. The course aims to provide the understanding needed for self-sufficient exploration and well-informed criticism of how computational methods relate to traditional scholarship. The semester begins with a history of computational research, then covers three major aspects of computational inquiry for the humanities: 1) representing primary sources, domains, and scholarly knowledge, 2) interacting with such representations via basic computer programming, and 3) introducing data-driven machine learning ("AI") to complement existing humanistic practices. Lectures and labs will also cover specific methods that immediately assist the scholar with practical tasks, such as regular expressions for pattern-based information retrieval and topic modeling for unsupervised primary source exploration. No prior experience with computation or programming is needed, and the course is particularly suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate students pursuing applied research in the humanities.
This course will focus on the policies that frame human service programs and the methods that are used to deliver them. Course content focuses specifically on child welfare and provides an opportunity for students to study why it is so hard to get good work done by government for vulnerable populations. Students will be given the opportunity to review the challenges of implementing programs and reforms in government and to consider the impact human services have on the population served. This unique course is taught by Professor Tierney, who spent 25 years in the public sector in Chicago, DC and most recently at the helm of the social services agency in Baltimore.
Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
This course will introduce students to quantitative methods for studying social policy problems. Topics to be covered include descriptive statistics and sampling, correlation and causation, simple and multiple regression, experimental methods, and an introduction to cost-benefit analysis. The emphasis will be on the selection, interpretation and practical application of these methodologies in specific policy settings, rather than with formal proofs. Skills will be reinforced by hands-on exercises using statistical software. Over the course of the semester, students will critically analyze policy reports and empirical research in a range of policy areas and learn how to present this research to a non-specialist audience. Finally, we will discuss the pros and cons of quantitative vs. qualitative methodologies. The course will conclude with group presentations that draw on all these skills. Enrollment restricted to Social Policy minors only.
Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This multidisciplinary course explores the origins of life, planet formation, Earth's evolution, extrasolar planets, habitable zones, life in extreme environments, the search for life in the Universe, space missions, and planetary protection. Recommended Course Background: Three upper level (300+) courses in sciences (Biophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Math, or Computer Science).
Prerequisite(s): Students may not register for this class if they have already received credit for AS.020.334 OR AS.020.616 OR AS.171.333 OR AS.171.699 OR AS 270.335 OR AS.360.671
Area: Natural Sciences
This workshop is designed to hone the analytical and communications skills necessary for effective formulation and advocacy of public policy. Topics include how to develop op-ed pieces and other forms of advocacy journalism, memoranda, position papers, and grant proposals. The workshop puts special stress on how to make a clear and persuasive exposition of complex or counter-intuitive policy arguments in the market place of ideas, including the challenges of writing for popular journals and communicating to specific audiences both in and out of government. Students receive intensive individual instruction, including close editing of their work and advice on how to publish or promote it in the public sphere. Enrollment restricted to Social Policy minors only.
Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
This course is designed for students who have completed either the Baltimore intensive semester of the Social Policy Minor. The students will make presentations and pursue joint projects based on what they have learned during the intensive semesters concerning key social policy issues.
Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
"When the Spanish unleashed their regime of colonization of what is present-day Mexico, their primary justification was the religious salvation of Indigenous people. Spaniards, along with other Europeans, arrived by the boatload to impose colonial order, taking up bureaucratic and ecclesiastical positions. The result was far from smooth—the sixteenth-century saw widespread disease, missionary violence on behalf of salvation, crop destruction and the recultivation of land, urban plans that radically altered the environment, the resettlement of entire populations, among other dramatic social and environmental events. This course investigates the complex and dynamic elements of colonial New Spain (as Mexico was called) from an interdisciplinary perspective. It tries to make sense of the chaotic landscape of the first century of Spanish colonial rule in New Spain. It is a research and writing intensive course that serves as an introduction to both the history and art history of this place and moment. Our meetings will act as a springboard for a group trip to Mexico during the January intersession to study objects and spaces in situ. Final projects will relate to materials viewed in person in Mexico. The costs for this trip are included for all students, no fees required. Knowledge of Spanish preferred but not required.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
This class will be a hands-on experience for students to be involved in the early stages of a documentary’s making. Students will be working with the professor on researching, planning, and writing the treatment for a documentary about a forgotten feminist play (1927) from pre-Holocaust Vienna, where diversity and progressive thought were still possible. This romantic comedy centers around a self-determined matriarch, Therese, helping her three daughters navigate the expectations of rigid, societal beliefs – often leading by example – as they find their way into adulthood. Moving back and forth between the archive of its time both through the re-appropriation of Nazi newsreels and propaganda films, as well as ephemeral films of the time and the the new staging of the play, the film will take the audience inside a theater space where a vibrant environment of escapism smashes against the harsh reality of its time, which is as vivid as it was 80 years ago.
The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, is historically and art historically well documented and firmly understood. But the Dutch also had significant holdings to the west via the Dutch West India Company, or WIC. They operated and held outposts in the present-day United States (New York/New Amsterdam), Caribbean (Surinam, Curaçao, Bonaire), Latin America (Brazil), and West Africa. Despite the abundance of materials associated with the WIC from this wide geography, these have been scarcely assessed by art historians, and a defined and comprehensive corpus has never been assembled. This class will act as a research lab in which to do so. In research teams, students will map artworks and objects created from that broad, transnational cultural ambit—categories that might include maps, landscape paintings, still life paintings featuring American flora and fauna, botanical illustrations, plantation architecture, luxury objects made from precious raw materials gathered in the Americas, the urban environment of slavery—and develop individual research questions around them.The class will run with a partner lab in the form of a course led by Professor Stephanie Porras at Tulane University. The course will feature speakers; and there is potential for funded travel to conduct research. We will start at the ground level; no previous knowledge about the field is required. Students from all disciplines are welcome.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Trade and exchange, and the social interactions they foster, are long-standing center-points of interest to archaeologists. For the ancient Near East, trade has been proposed as a key factor in the rise of the world’s earliest cities in southern Mesopotamia. During their earliest stages of development, cities in southern Mesopotamia were destination points for exotic raw materials and high-value trade goods, including copper and softstone (chlorite) from ancient Magan (present day Oman and the United Arab Emirates). This course will examine theories and methods for studying ancient trade, with a specific focus on copper and chlorite from Oman. Students will learn some of the key methods archaeologists use to analyze ancient metal and stone, and will conduct some of their own analysis in laboratories at Johns Hopkins, including the Spatial Observation Lab for Archaeological Research (SOLAR) in Gilman Hall 135.
Area: Humanities
Learn the basics of ArcGIS and data management as you help Prof. Lurtz publish an agricultural dataset and maps from 10 years before Mexico erupted in revolution. No experience necessary.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This course focuses on a monetary approach to national income determination and the balance of payments. Money and banking, as well as commodity and financial markets, are dealt with under both central banking, as well as alternative monetary regimes. Particular emphasis is placed on currency board systems. Students learn how to properly conduct substantive economic research, utilizing primary data sources, statistical techniques and lessons from economic history. Findings are presented in the form of either memoranda or working papers of publishable quality. Exceptional work may be suitable for publication through the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. Advanced excel programming skills are required and students are expected to be pre-screened for research at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.. Bloomberg certification is a requisite.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
This course introduces students and researchers from humanities disciplines to ideas and practices from the computational sciences. The course aims to provide the understanding needed for self-sufficient exploration and well-informed criticism of how computational methods relate to traditional scholarship. The semester begins with a history of computational research, then covers three major aspects of computational inquiry for the humanities: 1) representing primary sources, domains, and scholarly knowledge, 2) interacting with such representations via basic computer programming, and 3) introducing data-driven machine learning ("AI") to complement existing humanistic practices. Lectures and labs will also cover specific methods that immediately assist the scholar with practical tasks, such as regular expressions for pattern-based information retrieval and topic modeling for unsupervised primary source exploration. No prior experience with computation or programming is needed, and the course is particularly suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate students pursuing applied research in the humanities.
The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, is historically and art historically well documented and firmly understood. But the Dutch also had significant holdings to the west via the Dutch West India Company, or WIC. They operated and held outposts in the present-day United States (New York/New Amsterdam), Caribbean (Surinam, Curaçao, Bonaire), Latin America (Brazil), and West Africa. Despite the abundance of materials associated with the WIC from this wide geography, these have been scarcely assessed by art historians, and a defined and comprehensive corpus has never been assembled. This class will act as a research lab in which to do so. In research teams, students will map artworks and objects created from that broad, transnational cultural ambit—categories that might include maps, landscape paintings, still life paintings featuring American flora and fauna, botanical illustrations, plantation architecture, luxury objects made from precious raw materials gathered in the Americas, the urban environment of slavery—and develop individual research questions around them.The class will run with a partner lab in the form of a course led by Professor Stephanie Porras at Tulane University. The course will feature speakers; and there is potential for funded travel to conduct research. We will start at the ground level; no previous knowledge about the field is required. Students from all disciplines are welcome.
Writing Intensive
This course will engage with 20th century critical theory and social inquiry that wrestles with the idea that new mediations have profoundly altered the character of human experience and subjectivity, and it will consider the questions that these theorists pose for our disciplines. How have modern subjectivity, gender, affect, reason, and politics been shaped by the technologies and structures of representation that mediate them? Among figures of interest: Marx, Freud, Eisenstein, Benjamin, Bakhtin, Adorno, Deleuze, Guy Debord, Haraway, Stuart Hall, Teresa de Lauretis, Kitterer, Sobchack, Berlant, Latour, Linda Williams, Ranciere, Orit Halpern.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
An interdisciplinary seminar on Latin America’s role in global economic processes, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Participants will engage with scholarly and primary texts as well as share written work. The Fall 2022 seminar will examine the topic of Latin American political thought.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
You do not need to register for any course in SIS. Within six weeks after course completion, the following entry will appear on your JHU transcript: “AS.360.624 – Responsible Conduct of Research (Online)"
Through a discussion-based curriculum, the Responsible Conduct of Research course introduces students to key research issues: academic ethics, animal subjects, conflict of interest, data management and authorship, and human subjects.Attendance to all meetings is required to receive credit for the course.
The second in a two-semester graduate sequence, this course will be for graduate students and faculty to collaboratively workshop their own research and writing on topics related to Latin American studies.
Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
This multidisciplinary course explores the origins of life, planet formation, Earth's evolution, extrasolar planets, habitable zones, life in extreme environments, the search for life in the Universe, space missions, and planetary protection. Recommended Course Background: Three upper level (300+) courses in sciences (Biophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Math, or Computer Science).
Prerequisite(s): Students may not register for this class if they have already received credit for AS.020.616 OR AS.020.334 OR AS.171.333 OR AS.171.699 OR AS.270.335 OR AS.360.339.
Area: Natural Sciences
Full-time A&S Graduate Students only. This course will prepare graduate students to teach at the university level. Topics covered include large and small class teaching, characteristics of student learning, syllabus construction, grading students, and developing a teaching portfolio.
Students will be introduced to the value of educational research for their teaching, professional career, and disciplinary field. Students will learn how to apply reflective, analytical, and iterative approaches to examining their teaching practices that are grounded in educational research methods. Students will learn how to use action research to improve their teaching and examine best practices for sharing results of these research inquiries with other professionals. Students will develop an educational research project proposal that they may submit for consideration to the JHU Teaching-as-Research Fellowship program. Course is graded P/F.