Hospitals: Virtually all of us were born in one, most of us will eventually die in one, and in between all of us will spend at least some time in one. Lots of you likely aspire to spend your careers in one. Along the way we, or some third-party payer, will spend a considerable amount of our health care benefits there. Our focus will be on the history of the hospital from its origins in early modern Europe and the Islamic world, through the early modern period, to the rise of the modern urban mega hospital. The Johns Hopkins Hospital has been ranked as one of the nation’s best by US News and World Report since its annual survey began, and spent nineteen straight years at number one. So we will devote some time to its history, and the history of its affiliated programs—The School of Medicine, The Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Nursing. For your major project, you will serve as advisors to the university’s Planning and Architecture committee. Drawing on your extensive knowledge of the history hospitals and medicine, you will re-envision the medical campus of the 21st century

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 8/23
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 10/23
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 18/23
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This class explores histories of diseases, epidemics, and therapeutics in Asia. We will examine the rise of public health and the nation-state and the social and political factors that guided the outcomes of public health campaigns. Who was helped? Who was harmed? Why? How? To answer these questions, we will compare both top-down and bottom-up movements to understand questions of access and ethics in different communities—ethnic, racial, and religious—and the handling of different diseases that were acute, infectious, and chronic.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Li, Lan
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/19
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is more American than the car? Road trips along desert scenes, lonesome gas stations, roadside diners and motels, massive highway interchange ramps in Los Angeles, teenagers coming of age while exploring the suburbs in their first car—these are the images we tend to associate with the American gospel of liberty, individualism, and prosperity. Simultaneously, for many Americans, cars, car culture, and automotive infrastructures evoke more negative images—of environmental and noise pollution, of congested streets, and of urban sprawl. In cities throughout America, disruptive road construction projects have had a highly disproportionate impact on lower-income communities and communities of color. Moreover, many would argue that Americans’ reliance on cars has resulted in substandard public transportation systems across the nation. Throughout the twentieth century—and especially since the 1960s—critics of car-centric planning have advocated for more investment in public transportation. More broadly, transportation planning has consistently been among the most contentious policy fields, generating fierce political battles in which Americans were forced to confront profound political questions—about the proper role of the federal government, about the environment, about (historic) architecture, about traffic safety, and about race, class, and gender. This course traces chronologically how the balance between cars and transit was negotiated as the twentieth century unfolded. We will use different historical approaches—political history, social and labor history, environmental history, the history of science and technology, and cultural history—giving us a broad array of perspectives to analyze the history of private and public passenger transportation in America. Throughout the course, we will put historical evidence in dialogue with current debates about transportation planning, encouraging us to imagine a more just and sustainable transportation future.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Schipper, Douwe Dirk
• Room: Gilman 377
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/18
• PosTag(s): n/a

How did the Western understanding of nature change between 1500 and 1720? We'll study the period through the works of astronomers and astrologers, naturalists and magi, natural philosophers and experimentalists, doctors and alchemists & many others.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Will we end up oppressed by robot overlords? Will robots become our lovers and caretakers? Can we solve societal problems by building yet more sophisticated robotic machines? Will we find ourselves out of work as technologies take over tasks once considered the exclusive domain of humans? In this course we will question our hopes and fears by examining the global development of robotics, the entanglement of technology with politics and economics, and the impact—real or imagined—that robots are having on society. We will marvel at the ingenuity of French and Japanese automata of centuries past, scrutinize assumptions about labor, race and gender in automation and “labor saving” technologies, examine how the “intelligence” of AI is understood differently in Japan vs the US, ponder the “uncanny valley” phenomenon, and meet a quirky cast of robotic prototypes including Shakey, Eliza, Wabot I and II, Aibo, Kismet, Paro, Asimo, Actroids, Repelees, Sophia, Pepper, and Hyodol. By contrasting technological and social histories of actual robots with fictional representations in literature, animation, and film, we will seek answers to persistent questions about our inevitable robotic futures.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/18
• PosTag(s): n/a

How have wars shaped the natural world, and vice versa? How have affected communities responded to environmental harm? This course explores the environmental history of warfare from the 18th century through the 20th century. It interrogates the relationship between imperialism, nation-building, and environmental destruction, while asking how the natural world might or might not have influenced the outcome of these military conflicts. The course demonstrates how warfare drew attention to environmental vulnerabilities, both on a local and a global scale. Topics include resource extraction in Euro-American empires, WWII recycling campaigns, ecological violence in the Vietnam War, and nuclear weapons testing.

• Days/Times: MW 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR

In this course, students will examine knowing and not knowing in the history of science. These competing factors have powerfully influenced scientific research programs, national policies, and international relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. But controlling scientific information is not a simple affair. How have scientists, corporations, and governments attempted to shift the balance of ignorance and intelligence in their favor, and what difficulties have they confronted? How has access to cutting-edge research been dispersed across geographic, institutional, and political lines? The course explores these questions through several case studies. Topics include trade secrecy in the global agrochemicals industry, censorship of nuclear fission research, modern cryptography, and contemporary misinformation campaigns. The course will also evaluate popular calls for “open science” against traditions of secrecy in scientific research.

• Days/Times: M 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room:  
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

“War is the only proper school for surgeons,” the Ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, is quoted to have said. This saying has been used to show how medicine and war have been thought for millennia to shape each other. Medicine has played a major role in situations of political conflict ever since human societies engaged in war and started elaborating “just war doctrines” that determine how belligerent parties should conduct war as an attempt to “civilize” war and mitigate its scourges. Through an investigation of case studies from the modern and contemporary world, this course will examine the role played by medicine in situations of political conflict, as well as the role played by war and humanitarian crises in the history of medical thought and practice. It will explore how medical knowledge and expertise have been deployed in situations of political violence or tumult and will ponder some of the ethical dilemmas faced by medical professionals in those contexts. Covering cases ranging from surgery in the American Civil War to the provision of medical care in the Syrian refugee crisis, some of the themes discussed will include biomedical ethics in armed conflict, torture, trauma, contagion, and medical innovation in conflict contexts.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan
• Room:  
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/18
• PosTag(s): n/a

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This lecture-based course surveys major scientific developments from the mid-18th century to present day, with a focus on the physical and biological sciences. These 250+ years witnessed significant transformations in modern scientific disciplines. The scale, scope, fame, and footprint of research expanded dramatically, with significant consequences for industrial development, environmental health, and the waging of war. Topics of study include the chemical revolution, evolutionary theory, quantum physics, the military-industrial complex, climate science, genetics, and biotechnology. Throughout the course, students will evaluate the social impact of scientific developments and remain attentive to the political, economic, and technological factors that facilitated the global expansion of modern science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This research-based Lab course will involve careful reading of a variety of Roman texts of the early empire, aiming to catalogue every instance of public speech and of the orators who speak in public. This cataloguing project, perhaps eventually resulting in an online database, will include historical and comparative readings about public speech as a feature of society.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Roller, Matthew
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This lecture-based course surveys major scientific developments from the mid-18th century to present day, with a focus on the physical and biological sciences. These 250+ years witnessed significant transformations in modern scientific disciplines. The scale, scope, fame, and footprint of research expanded dramatically, with significant consequences for industrial development, environmental health, and the waging of war. Topics of study include the chemical revolution, evolutionary theory, quantum physics, the military-industrial complex, climate science, genetics, and biotechnology. Throughout the course, students will evaluate the social impact of scientific developments and remain attentive to the political, economic, and technological factors that facilitated the global expansion of modern science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

How did ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean basin (Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Carthage) understand and represent their own and others’ identities and ethnic differences? How did notions and practices around race, citizenship, and immigration evolve from antiquity to the present? How have culture and politics informed artistic, literary, and museum representations of ethnic ‘others’ over time, along with the historical development of ethnography, biological science, and pseudo-sciences of race? What role did “Classics” (the study of Greco-Roman cultures) play in modern colonialism, racecraft, and inequality? And what role can it play in unmaking their legacies, through the ongoing Black Classicism movement, the practice of Critical Race Theory, and the development of more global and interconnective approaches to premodern cultures? RAP provides an opportunity for Hopkins undergraduates and graduate students from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds to engage in project-based research toward building an open-access, grant-winning educational resource (OER) on “Race in Antiquity.” Participants learn, share, and practice advanced research methods; examine and discuss the history and modern implications of the teaching and study of their fields; test-drive and collaboratively edit OER pilot materials; and create new content based on their own research, for eventual digital publication.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Pandey, Nandini
• Room: Greenhouse 000
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Krieger 170
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Religion is often portrayed as being at odds with science. From Galileo’s treatment by the Roman Inquisition to contemporary Creationism museums, we are told that religious institutions do not support science. Likewise, religious people don’t make good scientists – or do they? Is religion really the thorn in the side of science that so many claim it is? In this class, we will discover the interwoven history between scientific practice and religion, beginning with the atomism and humoral theories of the Ancient Greeks and culminating in 21st century debates about stem cells and cloning. Many of the great scientific minds were also deeply religious – how did their beliefs shape their practice of science and approach to the natural world? Is religion truly antithetical to scientific practice? And if not, why do we so readily assume that it is?

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 377
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/25
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course examines the relations of the scientific and technical enterprise and government in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics will include the funding of research and development, public health, national defense, etc. Case studies will include the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic, the Depression-era Science Advisory Board, the founding of the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the institution of the President’s Science Advisor, the failure of the Superconducting Supercollider, the Hubble Space Telescope, the covid pandemic, etc.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Ginsberg, Benjamin; Kargon, Robert H
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): INST-AP, MSCH-HUM

This class will cover the history alchemy from its Greco-Egyptian and Arabic roots, through its popularization in the European Middle Ages, to its zenith in the Early Modern period. Using both primary and secondary sources, students will see how alchemy, rather than being a mystical quest or nothing more than the desire to turn lead into gold, was in fact a complex system of belief about the natural world and the generation of materials, both organic and inorganic. Reading works by historical alchemists such as Roger Bacon, Paul of Taranto, Paracelsus, and others, students will understand how alchemy was incorporated into numerous intellectual and practical disciplines, including metallurgy, medical theory, pharmacology, natural philosophy, and even theology. At the conclusion of the course, students should be able to answer: what role did the translation movements and cross-cultural exchanges play in the development of European alchemy? In what ways were (al)chemical theories different than modern chemistry? And in what ways are they the same? How do technology and culture drive changes in scientific theories? All majors are welcome, although students may find that a high-school level understanding of general chemistry will be helpful.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course will explore the ancient idea of the artificial human (“human-made human”) from the Renaissance to the 21st century, focusing on its relationship to the prevalent scientific/philosophical/religious views of the time. Readings will include fictional classics such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, H.G. Wells’s Island of Dr. Moreau, and Karel Capek’s R.U.R., as well as essays by scientists and philosophers. Readings, films, discussions, lectures.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Kargon, Robert H
• Room: Maryland 201
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course explores health and society in England, 1500 to 1800 including healing practices at all levels of society, concepts of health and illness, patient experiences, and patterns of disease. Recommended Course Background: At least one course in History or History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Fissell, Mary E
• Room: Hodson 303
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/18
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, MSCH-HUM

Departmental Majors Writing a Senior Thesis Only

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course provides a fresh look at one of the most critical periods in the history of science – the so-called ‘Scientific Revolution’, spanning a period from approximately 1550 to 1750 – through the lens of colonial studies. It will address classic topics within the history and philosophy of science, such as the rise of observational epistemologies and the globalization of scientific knowledge. By connecting these philosophical concepts to the colonial contexts in which they arose, it will use tools from social history, economic history, and art history. Ultimately, it seeks not only to enrich students’ perspectives on the history of science, but also to inspire them to think about the connections between science and society across time, including in our own moment.

• Days/Times: MWF 9:00AM - 11:30AM
• Instructor: Hinckley, Marlis A
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Is the mind identical to the brain? Is the mind (or brain) a computer? Could a computer reason, have emotions, or be morally responsible? This course examines such questions philosophically and historically. Topics include: the history of AI research from 1940s to present; debates in cognitive science related to AI (computationalism, connectionism, and 4E cognition); and AI ethics.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:00PM - 4:45PM
• Instructor: Honenberger, Phillip
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/19
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course analyzes various episodes of “luddism” in the history of science and technology, from the destruction of textile machinery in the early 1800s up to recent controversies about robots, vaccines, and AI chatbots. What explains why different groups of actors did (or did not) resist the introduction of new technologies, ranging from the bicycle and the automobile to the nuclear energy plant? What types of fears did these technologies arouse? What can history teach us about the recurring concern that technological innovation might destroy more jobs than it generates? These are some of the themes we will be examining in this seminar on the basis of research presentations and classroom discussions of primary and secondary historical sources.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Mercelis, Joris Hans Angele
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Is the mind identical to the brain? Is the mind (or brain) a computer? Could a computer reason, have emotions, or be morally responsible? This course examines such questions philosophically and historically. Topics include: the history of AI research from 1940s to present; debates in cognitive science related to AI (computationalism, connectionism, and 4E cognition); and AI ethics.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 11:30AM
• Instructor: Honenberger, Phillip
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/19
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Backer, Samuel Ehrlich; Messner, Craig A
• Room: Gilman 195
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): COGS-COMPCG