From embellished silver pens and abolitionist secretary desks to contemporary artists manipulating historical postcards and making fax collages, this course will explore the materiality, technologies, and aesthetics of written communications from the 18th century to the present. This research-centered course will engage directly with objects in the Baltimore Museum of Art collection, in preparation for an upcoming exhibition. Topics include the development of specific decorative arts and designs in conjunction with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century postal and bureaucratic history, letter-writing as a mode of resistance, strategic illegibility and asemic writing as a form of critical artistic practice, and the importance of mail art as conceptual and institutional critique. Includes hands-on work in the museum and class visits with BMA curator Dr. Leslie Cozzi.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Brown, Rebecca Mary
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

What does it mean for the history of science to have a history of its own? In this course, we explore historiography of science, medicine, and technology and learn how to make it work for us. In addition to acquainting ourselves with the oft-cited classics and the rising stars in the field, we will learn how to make the most of previous scholarship by identifying explicit and implicit research motivations, discussing how difference in topics necessitates different source materials and research questions, and learning about the relationship between the argument and the writing style, as well as the form, content, and organization of the work. Rather than treating historiography as a pesky obligation, we will learn how to take advantage of historiography to become more mindful of our own motives behind telling histories of science, medicine, and technologies, to forge our own scholarly identities, and begin developing our own scholarly voices.

• Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia; Greene, Jeremy
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reports by staff members, students, and invited speakers.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby; McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Li, Lan
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

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

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Portuondo, Maria M
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Principe, Lawrence
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Ants, bees, beetles, fleas and flies, caterpillars and butterflies: as the earth’s most abundant animals, insects are arguably the most important player in our interactive environment. In this seminar, we will explore the diverse world of insects and other arthropods in philosophy, literature, and the sciences in order to gain a new perspective on current trends in animal and environmental studies in the US and Europe. Reading our way from John Donne’s “The Flea” and Robert Hooke’s “Micrographia” to Bernard Mandeville’s “The Fable of the Bees,” Barthold Heinrich Brockes insect-poems, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s infamous novel “The Flea,” to Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” Heidegger’s contentious bee-example, Uexküll’s biosemiotics, Deleuze and Guattari’s “A Thousand Plateaus” (they characterize our industrial time as “the age of insects”) and Donna Haraway’s “tentacular thinking,” we will ask how concepts and stories of insects and the insectile reflect and shape the ways we imagine our cultural as well as ecological milieus. We will look more closely at how entomological imaginaries evolved over time and shed light on different forms of interaction with the environment, politics, and (cultural, biological) diversity. This course covers a wide range of sources from different European languages (made available in English translations) and gives a survey of major junctures in the history of literary forms, scientific practices, and philosophical concepts.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 3:30PM
• Instructor: Frey, Christiane
• Room: Gilman 443
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

The graduate seminar surveys scholarly literature regarding the emergence and evolution of the environment as a concept or a perspective in modern life sciences since the mid-nineteenth century. From the physiological “milieu interieur” to the rise of ecology, from toxicology to epigenetics, it explored what social forces have shaped scientific understandings regarding what constitute an organism and its relevant environment, and how individual organisms became integrated, alienated, or became tools for research along with these understandings.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A hands-on workshop, in which we will cover a lot of what "they never tell you," including close reading of primary sources; "distant" reading of secondary literature, writing an academic article, writing for wider audiences, reviewing scholarly books, and other topics by request. Students will develop at least one piece of writing for publication.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Comfort, Nathaniel
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reports by faculty, students, and invited speakers.

• Days/Times: Th 3:00PM - 4:50PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby; McManus, Alison L
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: McManus, Alison L
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Principe, Lawrence
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Portuondo, Maria M
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Under the guidance of the faculty advisor, this course is for HST graduate students who are attending a directed readings course or preparing a dissertation.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Frumer, Yulia
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

For graduate students in the History of Science and Technology Department Only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/7
• 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: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• 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: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a