Welcome to Summer Spark by AGHI
Discover a new summer learning experience—an engaging series of humanities seminars created through a partnership between the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute (AGHI) and the Odyssey Lifelong Learning Program, organized by the Johns Hopkins Office of Alumni Relations. Launching in Summer 2026, Summer Spark by AGHI offers a fresh opportunity to explore big ideas through dynamic online seminars led by Johns Hopkins doctoral scholars.
Building on the success of AGHI’s highly regarded Blast Courses in the Humanities (2020–2025), Summer Spark brings the spirit of the Hopkins classroom to a broader audience through interactive, four-week virtual seminars. These small, discussion-based courses explore topics across history, culture, art, and global connections, giving participants the opportunity to learn directly from emerging scholars working at the forefront of humanities research.
We are thrilled to launch this collaboration as a shared commitment to innovative teaching and lifelong learning. Summer Spark instructors design their own original courses with support from Odyssey, including promotion and program coordination, as well as individualized pedagogical guidance from the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation. Together, these efforts create meaningful learning experiences that are intellectually rigorous, welcoming, and accessible.
“Both of us strive (Odyssey and AGHI) to bring the spirit of Johns Hopkins’ classrooms to a broader public, reimagining the hallmark rigor of campus discussions to suit formats beyond the on-site academic semester.”
— Jeanne-Marie Jackson, PhD, Director, Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
From ancient civilizations to global artistic traditions, Summer Spark invites learners to ask new questions, deepen their curiosity, and engage with a vibrant community of thinkers from across generations and geographies.
Join us this summer to spark new ideas, explore new perspectives, and experience the humanities in action.
Read Jeanne-Marie Jackson’s full welcome letter »
Summer Spark 2026 Courses
Each course meets once weekly for four sessions between July 6 and July 31, 2026, and is taught by Johns Hopkins University doctoral scholars.
| Course | Instructor |
|---|---|
| Ancient Egypt Through Its Stories Tuesdays July 7 – 28 6:00pm – 7:30pm ET This course will introduce students to ancient Egyptian culture through its literary epics and wisdom maxims. Over the course of four classes, students will learn about the three main genres of Egyptian literature: Narrative Tales, Wisdom Literature, and Reflective Discourses. Students will enjoy the wit, adventure, and wisdom in these tales while also learning about the cultural significance of themes, motifs, and characters. | Alison Wilkinson |
| France & America: A Transatlantic Friendship Tuesdays July 7 – 28 6:30pm – 8:00pm ET What does it mean for two nations to call each other “friends”? Marking the 250th anniversary of American Independence, this course explores the literary, political, and symbolic exchanges that have long shaped Franco-American relations. Revolutionary alliances, iconic monuments, artistic reinventions: Franco-American friendship has taken forms both familiar and unexpected. Moving from the little-known story of the Statue of Liberty to the generation of thinkers who reshaped American academic debates (beginning, in part, at Johns Hopkins) we will ask how ideas and ideals cross the Atlantic. No prior knowledge of French language, history, or literature is required. | Camille Roche |
| Healing After Harm: Slavery, Science, and the Historical Roots of Health Inequality Wednesdays July 8 – 29 10:00am – 11:30am ET This course will use history as a critical lens to examine the roots of contemporary health outcomes and health behaviors, as well as global conversations about structural inequalities. Students will be exposed to how a historical perspective can illuminate modern medical practices by revealing how past experiences, particularly slavery, colonialism, and racialized scientific research, continue to shape present-day healthcare systems, medical decision-making, and wellness outcomes. | Emmanuel J. A. Awine |
| Resisting Time: A Brief History of Art Conservation Fridays July 10 – 31 12:00pm – 1:30pm ET Stewards of material culture have consciously chosen what to preserve and how best to do so. How has the preservation and restoration of art changed over time? What does it tell us about cultural heritage and the adoption of scientific approaches to problems of their preservation more broadly? This course explores these choices through the history of art conservation, focusing on Europe and North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will discuss the emergence of the field of conservation alongside the rise of museums, scientific techniques for studying art, and even court cases in which conservators served as expert witnesses. | Leib Celnik |
About the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
The Alexander Grass Humanities Institute (AGHI) aims to advance humanities scholarship and teaching at Johns Hopkins and promote literature, art, philosophy, history, and other cultural studies in Baltimore and the wider community. The Humanities Institute serves as a focal point of programming for the 13 humanities departments in the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, other departments in humanistic social sciences, and related centers, programs, and institutes.