Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
The 2026 Master of Liberal Arts Colloquium at Johns Hopkins University brings together students, faculty, alumni, and community members for a virtual afternoon of interdisciplinary research. Centered on the theme “Critical Utopias: Liberal Arts in an Age of Uncertainty,” this year’s presentations explore questions of history, culture, identity, ethics, media, and social power through projects that reflect the intellectual breadth of the MLA program.
Schedule
Opening Remarks with Dr. Laura DeSisto and Tristan Cabello
Session 1: Moral Worlds, Collapse, and Historical Memory
- "After the Boom and After the Church: Guilt, Shame, and Moral Inheritance in Paul Murray’s Fiction" - Lauren Malloy
- "Between Agency and Structure: Interpreting Ordinary German Participation in the Holocaust" - Patrick Asis
- “You Row Forward Looking Back: Cultivating Hope Through History Education" - Leanna Darling
Session 2: Gender, Power, and Social Control
- "Caregiving, Print Culture, and Women’s Civic Authority, 1861–1870" - Jolisa Porter-Lasseter
- "Women, the California Gold Rush, and Historiographical Trends" - Bianca Angulo
- "Hindutva, Gender & Vigilantism" - Brian Line
Session 3: Blackness, Queerness, and Urban Cultural Life
- "Harlem Renaissance and the Rise of Black Queer Music" - Kaitlyn Williams
- "Gentrification Narratives in Contemporary Literary Texts" - Don Rath
- "Shall We Try Flourishing Instead? An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Hustle Culture, Its Ethical Implications, and Its Effects on Wellbeing" - Nicole Aguilar
Session 4: Representation, Media, and Experimental Forms
- "Visualizing Blindness in Animation: What Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars Rebels Can Teach Us about Blindness Stereotypes in U.S. Children’s Media" - Yvonne Rieckhoff
- "Ephemera’s Epilogue" - Chloe Dolandis
- "The Sublime Machine: Artificial Intelligence Across Aesthetic Registers" - Steve Marcantonio
For more information please visit:
https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/master-of-liberal-arts/
The 2026 Master of Liberal Arts Colloquium at Johns Hopkins University brings together students, faculty, alumni, and community members for a virtual afternoon of interdisciplinary research. Centered on the theme “Critical Utopias: Liberal Arts in an Age of Uncertainty,” this year’s presentations explore questions of history, culture, identity, ethics, media, and social power through projects that reflect the intellectual breadth of the MLA program.
Schedule
Opening Remarks with Dr. Laura DeSisto and Tristan Cabello
Session 1: Moral Worlds, Collapse, and Historical Memory
- "After the Boom and After the Church: Guilt, Shame, and Moral Inheritance in Paul Murray’s Fiction" - Lauren Malloy
- "Between Agency and Structure: Interpreting Ordinary German Participation in the Holocaust" - Patrick Asis
- “You Row Forward Looking Back: Cultivating Hope Through History Education" - Leanna Darling
Session 2: Gender, Power, and Social Control
- "Caregiving, Print Culture, and Women’s Civic Authority, 1861–1870" - Jolisa Porter-Lasseter
- "Women, the California Gold Rush, and Historiographical Trends" - Bianca Angulo
- "Hindutva, Gender & Vigilantism" - Brian Line
Session 3: Blackness, Queerness, and Urban Cultural Life
- "Harlem Renaissance and the Rise of Black Queer Music" - Kaitlyn Williams
- "Gentrification Narratives in Contemporary Literary Texts" - Don Rath
- "Shall We Try Flourishing Instead? An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Hustle Culture, Its Ethical Implications, and Its Effects on Wellbeing" - Nicole Aguilar
Session 4: Representation, Media, and Experimental Forms
- "Visualizing Blindness in Animation: What Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars Rebels Can Teach Us about Blindness Stereotypes in U.S. Children’s Media" - Yvonne Rieckhoff
- "Ephemera’s Epilogue" - Chloe Dolandis
- "The Sublime Machine: Artificial Intelligence Across Aesthetic Registers" - Steve Marcantonio
For more information please visit:
https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/master-of-liberal-arts/
