Students enrolled in this course explored artifacts and works on paper that were created by fans and foes of women’s suffrage and discovered how “votes for women” triumphed over fears of “petticoat government.”

This course drew on studies of queer affect, queer temporality, trans embodiment, and performance studies to explore how queer people shape collective memory through public history, broadly defined to include digital archives, documentary film, performance, walking tours, and site-specific installations.

Students enrolled in Romancing the Comic Book learned how these publications transformed from a much-mocked genre to an essential artifact that reveals much about mid-century American life and culture.

By examining the historic cookbooks held in Special Collections, students will uncover forgotten histories, learn how to analyze and interpret cookbooks as historic objects, identify signs of use and ownership, trace the development of recipes from the manuscript era to the mid-twentieth century, and discuss authorship versus authenticity in the popularization of recipes.

Engaging critically with queer and oral history theory, students broke into groups and coordinated interviews with 15+ queer Baltimore residents with the aim of archiving a queer reimagining of the city.

This discussion oriented seminar offered an intensive survey of cultural production by trans, non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and intersex artists, writers, poets, and musicians.

This First-Year Seminar offers an in-depth exploration of Baltimore’s queer and trans archives, expansively defined, engaging with interdisciplinary scholarship on “the archive” within queer and trans studies.