How did people understand human difference before modern biology or the invention of categories like ‘black’ and ‘white’? Were ancient societies ethnically pure or hostile toward other cultures? Or are race and racism not inherent to the human condition, but rather, cultural products that vary based on the needs of those in power? This First-Year Seminar tackles some of these questions by exploring constructions of race, ethnicity, and difference among people who lived around the Mediterranean Sea between 1000 BCE – 500 CE. It will introduce you to the cultural diversity of ancient Asian, African, and European societies, hone your ability to interpret primary sources both literary and visual, and survey ways of theorizing human difference across time in hopes of better preparing you for lives and careers in our interconnected world.. We will also examine the role that classical Greece and Rome played in modern racecraft, Western imperialism, even the political systems, socioeconomic structures, and architecture that surround us. This course hopes to give you a wider historical frame in which to understand race and racism, as well as the cultural politics around "classics" and questions of heritage, revealing both as dynamic and historically situated discourses that have been used to exert power, to include or exclude, and to build communities. All sources are provided in English, no prior background in classics is assumed, and there are no prerequisites beyond a willingness to work, speak, and think with an open mind.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Pandey, Nandini
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

We will read a selection of Greek tragedies in translation and explore the visual arts that appear in, shaped, and respond to them.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Stager, Jennifer
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): HART-ANC

In antiquity, Rome became the capital of an empire, its growing status reflected in its sophisticated urban planning, its architecture, and the arts. While an abundance of studies explores the revival of this glorious past in the Renaissance, this seminar discusses various ways of the reception of antiquity during the medieval period. We address the practice of using spolia in medieval architecture, the appropriation of ancient pagan buildings for the performance of Christian cult practices, the continuation of making (cult)images and their veneration, the meaning and specific visuality of Latin script (paleography and epigraphy) in later medieval art. We discuss the revival and systematic study of ancient knowledge (f. ex. medicine, astronomy, and the liberal arts), in complex allegorical murals. As we aim to reconstruct the art and architecture of medieval Rome, this course discusses ideas and concepts behind different forms of re-building and picturing the past, as they intersect with the self-referential character of a city that is obsessed with its own history.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Zchomelidse, Nino
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): HART-ANC, HART-MED

This course provides a comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of ancient Greek. During the first semester, the focus will be on morphology and vocabulary. Cannot be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.

• Days/Times: MTThF 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Liao, Zijun
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): ARCH-RELATE

This course provides a comprehensive, intensive introduction to the study of Latin for new students, as well as a systematic review for those students with a background in Latin. Emphasis during the first semester will be on morphology and vocabulary. Course may not be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.

• Days/Times: MWF 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Palmer, RJ Joseph
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/16
• PosTag(s): n/a

The course will introduce students to major aspects of the ancient Greek civilization, with special emphasis placed upon culture, society, archaeology, literature, and philosophy.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Smith, Joshua M
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course aims to provide an in-depth exploration of Homer’s Odyssey (in translation). We will study the poem’s roots in a tradition of ancient oral poetry, gain a fuller understanding of how it was interpreted within different historical contexts, and examine the poem’s fascination with topics such as gender, class, tales of exploration and colonization, truth and lies and identity.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Gerolemou, Maria G
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reading ability in classical Greek is developed through a study of various authors.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Nakajima, Keisuke
• Room: Greenhouse 113
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Although emphasis is still placed on development of rapid comprehension, readings and discussions introduce student to study of Latin literature, principally through texts of various authors.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Skoutelas, Charissa Martha
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course aims to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the ancient Greek language. Intensive reading of ancient Greek texts, with attention to grammar, idiom, translation, etc. Reading of prose or verse authors, depending on the needs of students. Specific offerings vary. Co-listed with AS.040.705.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course aims to increase proficiency and improve comprehension of the Latin language. Intensive reading of Latin texts, with attention to grammar, idiom, translation, etc. Specific offerings vary. Co-listed with AS.040.707.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Roller, Matthew
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this course, students will analyze the role of animals in ancient medicine and the Greco-Roman world as a springboard for discussing medical philosophy, ethics, and boundaries between humans and animals in antiquity and modernity. Students will learn to use critical thinking to connect how animals have shaped human lives through medicine and philosophy in antiquity to how we view animal contributions to the development of medicine today. Additionally, students will examine and interrogate how ancient theories of animality, and intelligence have been weaponized against marginalized people in medicine. Through readings, discussions, and talks from guest bioethics Hopkins professors, students will navigate bioethical issues directly related to Johns Hopkins as a premier medical institution.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Treadway, Tashi M
• Room: Gilman 75
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This intensive Latin survey is designed for very advanced undergraduate students--normally those who have completed two semesters of Advanced Latin (AS.040.307/308)--and PhD students preparing for their Latin translation exam. In this course, the first half of a year-long sequence, we will read substantial texts of major Republican and some Augustan authors. The weekly pace is designed to inculcate greater speed and accuracy in Latin reading, and provide significant coverage of various kinds of texts. Recommended background: AS.040.307-308 or equivalent

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Pandey, Nandini
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

This CRL seeks to collect data systematically from texts of the early Roman Imperial age regarding instances of people represented as speaking in public. This semester, our aim will be to collect instances and generate data from an expanding range of texts. This data is currently housed in Excel spreadsheets. We will also be looking to build, debug, and launch a web-based interface/browser/search engine that will, for the first time, allow public access to the database, and turn it into a truly public digital humanities project. Knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin language is NOT required.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Roller, Matthew
• Room: Greenhouse 000
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ARCH-ARCH, ARCH-RELATE

What did it mean to be free in the premodern world? What did it mean to be a serf or enslaved? How was freedom and unfreedom experienced differently based on gender, geography, religion and space? This two-semester course will explore the social history of slavery, freedom, and ‘unfreedom,’ that is, constraints placed on individuals and groups and the structuring role of such constraints. We will consider together an array of source materials spanning law codes, personal narratives, manumission cases, chronicles, histories, and hagiography, but also including a close examination of non-written sources. How did practices of slavery and unfreedom during the Greek and Roman periods come to shape an understanding of those categories in Europe and the Islamic world by ca. 1000CE? What role did trade and the movement of people play in this transition? Are slavery and empire intimately connected? An emphasis is also given to how scholars have written about slavery, manumission, and freedom in the past and how power, difference, and ideals of freedom have been theorized over time. This seminar meets once a week. Students should be prepared to discuss course materials and will be asked to keep a reading journal as well as notes from class discussion. This is the first of a two-semester sequence. Part I: the Ancient and Medieval Period (ca. 500BCE-1000CE); Part II (to be taught in the spring of 2026): the Medieval and Early Modern World (ca. 1000-1500CE)

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Lester, Anne E.
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): HIST-EUROPE, CES-LE, CES-LSO, CES-PD

An introduction to archaeology and to archaeological method and theory, exploring how archaeologists excavate, analyze, and interpret ancient remains in order to reconstruct how ancient societies functioned. Specific examples from a variety of archaeological projects in different parts of the world will be used to illustrate techniques and principles discussed.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Schwartz, Glenn M
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 30/40
• PosTag(s): ARCH-ARCH, ARCH-RELATE

A survey of the earlier phase of Greek philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will be discussed, as well as two groups of thinkers who preceded them, usually known as the pre-Socratics and the Sophists.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Bett, Richard
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ANCIEN

A survey of the earlier phase of Greek philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will be discussed, as well as two groups of thinkers who preceded them, usually known as the pre-Socratics and the Sophists.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Bett, Richard
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ANCIEN

Stories entertain us, but we can also receive guidance from them, and we can tell them to impart guidance to others, to exercise influence, to make a point. This course will explore the ways that stories make their points in the genre sometimes called “fable,” in works by authors ranging from Aesop to George Saunders, from the 4th century to the present.  We’ll debate what fables actually are – Short morality tales about animals?  Portraits of exemplary figures that demonstrate how to live? - in part by reading many examples of the form and some theories of it, in part by writing fables of our own.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Cannon, Christopher; Choi, Susan
• Room: Gilman 108
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/15
• PosTag(s): WRIT-FICT, WRIT-READ

This course explores the surviving “objects” of the ancient Greco-Roman world, and the histories of their excavation, organization, and preservation in museum and library collections. From ancient objects and sculptures, ancient Greek papyri, scrolls, and late-antique and medieval books, to the revival of Greek and Roman traditions in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, we will learn how these objects help shape and transform our understanding of the ancient world over two millennia, up to the formation of the great antiquities museums of the modern era. This hands-on course will take advantage of ancient objects and texts in Baltimore, at the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as the Archaeology Museum at JHU and the rare book and manuscript collections of the Sheridan Libraries at JHU.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Havens, Earle A; Michalek, Martin William
• Room: BLC 2043
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): MLL-ENGL