The courses listed below are provided by Student Information Services (SIS). This listing provides a snapshot of immediately available courses within this department and may not be complete. Course registration information can be found at sis.jhu.edu/classes.
Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information.
Column one has the course number and section. Other columns show the course title, days offered, instructor's name, room number, if the course is cross-referenced with another program, and a option to view additional course information in a pop-up window.
Course # (Section)
Title
Day/Times
Instructor
Room
PosTag(s)
Info
AS.001.131 (01)
FYS: Techno - Anthropology
MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Degani, Michael
FYS: Techno - Anthropology AS.001.131 (01)
This course offers an introduction to anthropological perspectives on technology. We begin the human body as our most basic technology, and survey various tradecraft (fire and animal domestication, time-keeping, inscription, sailing) that have adapted us to diverse environments. We then examine the consequences of industrial technology, with its emphasis on automation, standardization and scaling. Finally, we turn to the rise of information technology such as social media, and the ways it has transformed senses of communication and place. Throughout we attend to the complex interplay of technological power and social organization.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Instructor: Degani, Michael
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 11/12
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.223 (01)
Engaging Plants: Human-Plant Relations in Anthropology
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Myung, Sumin
Engaging Plants: Human-Plant Relations in Anthropology AS.070.223 (01)
With their biogeochemical power of rearranging elements, plants have sustained and proliferated life on Earth. Accordingly, humans have cultivated different relations with plants, from domestication to sciences, from agriculture to industrialized plantation, across space and time. Planetary ecological crises have radically pushed us to reconsider not simply what it means to be human but also what it means to live as an “earthling” within the complicated, fast-changing webs of life and nonlife, which are fundamentally intertwined with the vegetal forms of life. This course will explore anthropologically-informed diagnoses and prognoses of the various ways of engaging plants. Specifically, we will delve into standard forms through which humans have engaged plants, institutional frameworks that have given rise to these forms, and alternatives to these forms and institutions
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: Myung, Sumin
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 10/18
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.281 (01)
Home and Belonging
TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Procupez, Valeria
Mergenthaler 426
Home and Belonging AS.070.281 (01)
In this course we will examine different conceptions and experiences of "home" through studies of domesticity, kinship and household in diverse cultural settings. Reading anthropological analysis of urban built environment and locality, we will explore the notions of home and homeland, as realms of care, intimacy and belonging yet also as sites of subjection, discrimination and gender/racial inequality.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Instructor: Procupez, Valeria
Room: Mergenthaler 426
Status: Open
Seats Available: 17/18
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.317 (01)
Methods
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Khan, Naveeda
Methods AS.070.317 (01)
This course aims to teach basic fieldwork skills: Choosing and entering a community; establishing contacts; learning to listen and to ask questions and locating archival material that might be relevant. It is a hands-on course that increases student familiarity with various neighborhoods such as the Arts District in Baltimore. Recommended Course Background: two or more prior courses in anthropology (not cross-listed courses). Course is a requirement for anthropology major.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Khan, Naveeda
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 16/20
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.334 (01)
Contemporary Anthropology
T 4:00PM - 6:00PM
Pandian, Anand
Contemporary Anthropology AS.070.334 (01)
Students are invited to attend, for credit, the departmental research colloquium in anthropology. The colloquium meets most (but not all) Tuesday afternoons during the semester. Students are expected to attend and listen, encouraged to ask questions when they wish, and to write one brief reflection on contemporary trends in the field, based on what they have observed during these sessions. Prerequisite: Students must have completed one Anthropology course previously This course does not apply to Anthropology major or minors towards their minimum department requirement. It counts towards your total credit requirement to degree..
Credits: 1.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:00PM
Instructor: Pandian, Anand
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 15/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.337 (01)
Invisible Cities
M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Angelini, Alessandro, Procupez, Valeria
INST-GLOBAL
Invisible Cities AS.070.337 (01)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Invisible Cities by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The curious little book, a kind of re-imagining of Marco Polo’s travels as a parable about the tensions between description and abstraction, has enchanted countless readers and directly inspired projects in architecture, performance art, and the social sciences. This course embarks in a close reading of Invisible Cities to enliven engagements with urban anthropology. We will explore the hidden and uncanny in urban worlds as an inroads into discussions of theory and ethnographic inquiry.
Religious Freedom and Prisons in America AS.070.363 (01)
"Although we often think of religious freedom as a fixed philosophical doctrine of Enlightenment liberalism, it is a concept continually being (re)made from the ground up in increasingly important ways that today affect national politics and the judiciary. Nowadays, religious freedom has cultivated oppositional meanings: it holds together both a freedom from and to supersede government regulation; where actions in the name of religious freedom seek both to separate from government and to radically engage it as a theological force.
We begin by taking this tension as a provocation to look locally and draw widely from a variety of ethnographic, historical, philosophical, literary, and other present-day texts and media, which will deepen how we understand the significant scope of what is at play and at stake in contemporary America and its politics. Through our readings and discussions, we will better grasp how religious freedom and its legal interpretations have grown from the bottom up, moving through local policies, social geographies and institutions, such as churches and prisons, as much as through any singular adherence to transcendent philosophical doctrine.
While this class is an overarching exploration of how American Christianity has developed, it will pay particular attention to the Alabama and Louisiana prison systems and their distinctive religious histories. And we will focus on how the varied conceptual forms of religious freedom relate to the social geographies, religious discourses, literary texts, and media produced in and through ideas of the American South."
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 4:00PM - 6:30PM
Instructor: Thornton, Thomas Frederick
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 13/18
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.369 (01)
Media Artist in Residence Jane Jin Kaisen
Th 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Han, Clara, Wegenstein, Bernadette
Media Artist in Residence Jane Jin Kaisen AS.070.369 (01)
Media Artist in Residence Jane Jin Kaisen is a team-taught class between Clara Han (Anthropology) and Bernadette Wegenstein (MLL). In this class we will prepare the artist residency of Jane Jin Kaisen, a visual artist born in Jeju Island, South Korea and raised in Denmark. In the first part of the semester, we will cover theoretical questions raised in Jane Jin Kaisen’s work such as cross-cultural adoption, diaspora, migration, war, gender and sexuality, and translation. In the second part we will involve students practically in questions of media arts curation for the artist’s exhibit planned for April 2-9, 2022, at the Parkway Theatre, featuring three of her recent and acclaimed installations and films: The Woman, the Orphan, and the Tiger (2010), Apertures/ Rifts (2016), and Community of Parting (2019. In this class students will be closely involved with JHU's Center for Advanced Media Studies (CAMS), and the Baltimore Stavros Niarchos Parkway Theatre’s artistic director Christy LeMaster. They will also meet the artist Jane Jin Kaisen during her residency.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: Th 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Han, Clara, Wegenstein, Bernadette
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 16/20
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.381 (01)
Addiction: An anthropological approach to substance dependence in the U.S.
F 3:00PM - 5:30PM
Ziv, Tali R (Tali)
Addiction: An anthropological approach to substance dependence in the U.S. AS.070.381 (01)
This course offers an advanced examination of the interpersonal, institutional, and societal dimensions of addiction in the United States. The course will be divided into four sections. This first section tracks the evolution of addiction from a moral problem of the will to a formal, biomedical disease category over the course of the 20th century. This section introduces the problem of addiction within the societal context of the United States, exploring questions of political governance, social control, and issues of race, class, and gender inequality. It asks the question: what is the social life of addiction in the United States? The second section of the course will ground these broad inquiries in the urban U.S. by examining how addiction overlaps with mass incarceration, poverty, and homelessness in the U.S. city. Over the course of this section, we will engage and reframe the crack crisis of the late 20th century. The third section of the course will shift our attention to the rural United States and how addiction overlays unemployment, social isolation, and the urbanization of the U.S. Through this social and institutional lens, the third course section will explore the contemporary opioid crisis and draw comparisons with the crack crisis. The course concludes with an examination of the personal dimensions of the addiction experience and explores substance dependence in the realms of kinship, love, and personal understandings of recovery.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 3:00PM - 5:30PM
Instructor: Ziv, Tali R (Tali)
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/17
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.402 (01)
Sustainable Design Studio
W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Pandian, Anand
ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR
Sustainable Design Studio AS.070.402 (01)
Environmental justice issues require sustainable design solutions founded on social scientific practice, technical expertise, and solidarity with community partners. Building on theoretical and methodological knowledge gained in the Fall 2020 Sustainable Design course (AS.070.433/633), the Sustainable Design Studio will bring together students, members of Baltimore social justice organizations, and practitioners from a variety of disciplines to work in collaboration to research and design solutions to complex social-ecological problems faced by partner organizations. This studio class provides students with practical, project-based design experience through community collaboration. Instructor permission required.
Credits: 4.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Pandian, Anand
Room:
Status: Approval Required
Seats Available: 19/19
PosTag(s): ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR
AS.070.403 (01)
Public Anthropology
Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Pandian, Anand
Mergenthaler 426
Public Anthropology AS.070.403 (01)
Recent years have seen a renewed commitment to public work in anthropology, in terms of writing, presentation, and activist engagement. This course will focus on recent ethnographic work in a public vein, examining questions of medium, voice, and responsibility, as well as contexts of circulation and reception. We will explore what it means to pursue anthropology with a broader public in mind.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Pandian, Anand
Room: Mergenthaler 426
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/10
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.070.419 (01)
Logic of Anthropological Inquiry
T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Das, Veena (Veena)
Mergenthaler 426
ARCH-RELATE
Logic of Anthropological Inquiry AS.070.419 (01)
Anthropology is an endeavor to think with the empirical richness of the world at hand, a field science with both literary and philosophical pretensions. This course grapples with the nature of anthropological inquiry, reading classic works in the discipline as well as contemporary efforts to reimagine its foundations. Required for anthropology majors.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Das, Veena (Veena)
Room: Mergenthaler 426
Status: Open
Seats Available: 7/15
PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE
AS.070.473 (01)
Readings of Foucault
F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Das, Veena (Veena)
Mergenthaler 439
INST-PT
Readings of Foucault AS.070.473 (01)
We will do a close reading of selected texts of Foucault to track the concepts of power, subjectivity, government, and care of the self.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Das, Veena (Veena)
Room: Mergenthaler 439
Status: Open
Seats Available: 3/5
PosTag(s): INST-PT
AS.130.126 (01)
Gods and Monsters in Ancient Egypt
MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM
Jasnow, Richard
ARCH-RELATE
Gods and Monsters in Ancient Egypt AS.130.126 (01)
A basic introduction to Egyptian Religion, with a special focus on the nature of the gods and how humans interact with them. We will devote particular time to the Book of the Dead and to the "magical" aspects of religion designed for protective purposes.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM
Instructor: Jasnow, Richard
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 10/75
PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE
AS.145.219 (01)
Science Studies and Medical Humanities: Theory and Methods
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Bayoumi, Soha Hassan (Soha)
Science Studies and Medical Humanities: Theory and Methods AS.145.219 (01)
The knowledge and practices of science and medicine are not as self-evident as they may appear. When we observe, what do we see? What counts as evidence? How does evidence become fact? How do facts circulate and what are their effects? Who is included in and excluded from our common-sense notions of science, medicine, and technology? This course will introduce students to central theoretical concerns in Science and Technology Studies and the Medical Humanities, focusing on enduring problematics that animate scholars. In conjunction with examinations of theoretical bases, students will learn to evaluate the methodological tools used in different fields in the humanities to study the production and circulation of scientific knowledge and the structures of medical care and public health. This problem-centered approach will help students understand and apply key concepts and approaches in critical studies of science, technology, and medicine.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan (Soha)
Room:
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/18
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.145.220 (01)
Health, Medicine, Gender, and Sexuality
T 9:00AM - 10:15AM, Th 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Han, Clara
Virtual Online
Health, Medicine, Gender, and Sexuality AS.145.220 (01)
This course invites students to take the perspective of gender and sexuality on health and medicine. In this course, we do not see gender and sexuality as a separate domain of health. Instead, we will learn how a gender perspective is in fact crucial for critically exposing the ways in which medicine is interpenetrated by social life and by law. For example, what technologies and discourses constitute “the normal”? How is sexuality braided into disease surveillance? How do we understand the lawfare on the terrain of reproductive rights? What aspects of disease are suppressed in dominant forms of knowledge production, due to the undervaluation of gendered forms of experience? We will take cases involving HIV/AIDS; reproductive justice and rights; poverty, marginality and queer kinship; and household patterns of care.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 9:00AM - 10:15AM, Th 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Instructor: Han, Clara
Room: Virtual Online
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 1/20
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.145.220 (02)
Health, Medicine, Gender, and Sexuality
T 9:00AM - 10:15AM, Th 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Han, Clara
Virtual Online
Health, Medicine, Gender, and Sexuality AS.145.220 (02)
This course invites students to take the perspective of gender and sexuality on health and medicine. In this course, we do not see gender and sexuality as a separate domain of health. Instead, we will learn how a gender perspective is in fact crucial for critically exposing the ways in which medicine is interpenetrated by social life and by law. For example, what technologies and discourses constitute “the normal”? How is sexuality braided into disease surveillance? How do we understand the lawfare on the terrain of reproductive rights? What aspects of disease are suppressed in dominant forms of knowledge production, due to the undervaluation of gendered forms of experience? We will take cases involving HIV/AIDS; reproductive justice and rights; poverty, marginality and queer kinship; and household patterns of care.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 9:00AM - 10:15AM, Th 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Instructor: Han, Clara
Room: Virtual Online
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/20
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.300.301 (01)
Women and Work in the US
TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Wells, Madeline (Maddie)
Gilman 208
INST-AP
Women and Work in the US AS.300.301 (01)
This course offers an introduction to the political forces, cultural values, and social factors which have shaped the history of women’s labor in the US. This course will ask question such as: Why do we place a higher value on work which takes place in the public sphere than work in the home? How do representations of work in literature and popular movies reinforce or subvert gender roles? How have women negotiated gendered and racial boundaries through political action or writing? Focusing on racialized labor, domestic labor, sex work, and factory work, the course will provide an interdisciplinary cultural study of women’s work relevant to our current historical moment. Authors discussed include Saidiya Hartman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emma Goldman, and Kathi Weeks.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Instructor: Wells, Madeline (Maddie)
Room: Gilman 208
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/15
PosTag(s): INST-AP
AS.363.330 (01)
Ecofeminist Debates: Gender and Sexuality Beyond the Global West
F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Abiral, Burge
INST-PT
Ecofeminist Debates: Gender and Sexuality Beyond the Global West AS.363.330 (01)
This course develops an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to introduce students to ecofeminism through a special focus on its inflections in non-western contexts. Through class discussions and sustained writing engagement, we will develop an understanding of the history of ecofeminism, including theoretical debates linking gender perspectives with political mobilization, as well as ecofeminism's enduring influence on new intellectual and political movements.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Abiral, Burge
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/18
PosTag(s): INST-PT
AS.389.260 (01)
Cultural Heritage in Crisis
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Balachandran, Sanchita
Gilman 150A
PMUS-INTRO, INST-GLOBAL, ARCH-ARCH
Cultural Heritage in Crisis AS.389.260 (01)
We explore the possible futures of cultural heritage and museums in times of accelerating climate change, pandemics, armed conflict and political and social turmoil by examining past and contemporary events.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Balachandran, Sanchita
Room: Gilman 150A
Status: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/15
PosTag(s): PMUS-INTRO, INST-GLOBAL, ARCH-ARCH
AS.070.367 (01)
Science and Technology in Africa
TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Degani, Michael
INST-CP, INST-GLOBAL
Science and Technology in Africa AS.070.367 (01)
This course explores the role of science and technology in the making of African histories and politics. We will examine precolonial iron-working, healing, and weaving; the ways guns and railroads functioned as tools of empire; the role of hydroelectric dams in postcolonial nation building; and the rise of digital communication and payment systems in the present. Throughout, we will challenge commonsense distinctions between the material and the spiritual, designers and users, wealth and people.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: Degani, Michael
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 19/30
PosTag(s): INST-CP, INST-GLOBAL
AS.230.367 (01)
Islamic Finance
M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Calder, Ryan
INST-ECON, ISLM-ISLMST
Islamic Finance AS.230.367 (01)
Today, Islamic finance is a global industry comprising nearly $3 trillion in assets, with hubs from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai to London. But half a century ago, nothing called “Islamic finance” existed. So where did Islamic finance come from? Why is it growing so fast? And what does it mean for finance to be Islamic? We discuss the ban on usury in Islam and other religious and philosophical traditions, finance in early and medieval Islamic societies, petrodollars and the birth of Islamic banking in the 1970s, the rise of Islamic capital markets since 2000, contemporary shariah-compliant financial structures, and the constitution of piety through financial practice.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Calder, Ryan
Room:
Status: Reserved Open
Seats Available: 9/14
PosTag(s): INST-ECON, ISLM-ISLMST
AS.100.365 (02)
Culture & Society in the High Middle Ages
MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
Spiegel, Gabrielle M
HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL
Culture & Society in the High Middle Ages AS.100.365 (02)
This course will cover the period commonly known as the High Middle Ages, that is, the civilization of Western Europe in the period roughly from 1050 to 1350. . It is a period of exceptional creativity in the history of Western Europe and in medieval history specifically, a time when many of the most characteristic institutions of Europe came into being.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
Instructor: Spiegel, Gabrielle M
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 18/20
PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL
AS.100.365 (01)
Culture & Society in the High Middle Ages
MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
Spiegel, Gabrielle M
HIST-EUROPE, INST-GLOBAL
Culture & Society in the High Middle Ages AS.100.365 (01)
This course will cover the period commonly known as the High Middle Ages, that is, the civilization of Western Europe in the period roughly from 1050 to 1350. . It is a period of exceptional creativity in the history of Western Europe and in medieval history specifically, a time when many of the most characteristic institutions of Europe came into being.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
