For many individuals, the Hopkins name engenders thoughts about medicine, unparalleled researched, and scientific discovery.
Unknown to many is that the English department, although small and hidden in the endless maze that is Gilman Hall, is worthy of also being synonymous to Hopkins.
Like its more publicized counterparts, the English department boasts an intimate learning environment with stellar faculty, many internationally renowned.
One highly regarded English faculty member, particularly among Hopkins students, is Professor Jared Hickman. Hickman recently sat down with The News-Letter to discuss his interests, research, and unique hobbies, among other things.
The News-Letter (N-L): How many years have you been teaching at Hopkins? What classes do you teach and which is your favorite?
Jared Hickman (JH): This is the beginning of my third year at Hopkins so I guess I’ve taught two years here. I have taught “Intro to Literary Study,” the gateway course for English majors, a couple of times, and I’ve taught the first installment of the “American Literature Survey to 1865.” I’ve taught two undergraduate seminar 300-level courses. One is called “American Bibles” and other called the “Cosmos Race: Cosmopolitanism in Theories of American Culture.”
Each [class] offers something different to the professor. It is fun to teach “Intro to Literary Study” because we end up having a lot of non-majors, scientists and engineers, who are taking the court to fulfill a general-education credit. It is fun to initiate them into the discipline of literary study, specifically close reading, [and] to try to convince them that literary criticism is not just about sharing your feelings about a given text but that we have our own data. We are in the business of making arguments about texts on the basis of data.
Teaching this class is fun — fun for me because I can construct my own sweeping tale of American literary form the colonial period to the civil war, and it is fun to be able to read a bunch of texts in chronological successions and to try to see continuities and discontinuities between them over time.
Definitely, I on the whole prefer the 300-level seminar, conducting class on the basis of discussion.
The two 300-level courses, “American Bibles” and the Cosmos Race course are some of the first courses that I’ve taught where I was entirely responsible for the syllabus. These were courses that I imagined — had fantasized — being able to teach as a grad student. They were an experiment in putting together a set of texts whose connections might not be obvious and seeing what students did with them.
N-L: Why did you choose to study English?
JH: I am one of those people who has been on the course to being an English professor for my whole life it feels like. Like a lot of people that are in this profession, I began as a creative writer, writing poems and stories. In some way I always wanted to be a writer and kind of backed into being a professional literary critic.
I’ve ended up being so engrossed by the work of being a literary critic that I haven’t done a lot of my own creative writing in quite a while. For the moment I am happy to be a literary scholar.
N-L: What did you do before coming to Hopkins?
JH: I did my undergrad [education] at Bowdoin College up in Maine and was fortunate to get a Watson Fellowship and traveled for a year studying in Latin America right after I finished at Bowdoin. Once I got back I started my graduate studies at Harvard. I received a Ph.D in the summer of 2008 and started at Hopkins in the fall of 2008.
N-L: Where is your favorite place on Hopkins campus and why?
JH: The easy answer is my spanking new office in Gilman Hall. Anybody who was subjected to life in Dell House would know that the new Gilman is wonderful. I am basking in my wonderful office with two windows most of the time.
N-L: Are you currently doing any research?
JH: When is one not doing some research? My big project is trying to turn my Ph.D dissertation into a book. My dissertation was entitled “Black Prometheus” and was focused on tracking the racialization of Prometheus in 18th and 19th century texts and especially thinking about the figure of Prometheus in discourse on slavery.
The big question is what is the sort of political and theological framework of Atlantic slavery.
The figure of Prometheus is relevant here since if you were in slavery and did not want to be a slave and you were being told all of the time that your enslavement was divinely ordained in one sense or another, the slave rebel inherently becomes a kind of Promethean or satanic figure.
N-L: What is one book or poem that you think every Hopkins student should read?
JH: Moby Dick. I think it’s a book that everybody should read. Its funny and I think nothing would make Melville roll over in his grave more than to think that it is a text that has acquired a kind of reverential status in some people’s minds.
[I choose Moby Dick] on the condition that students can be convinced that it is a funny novel, and they can see how much fun Melville is having as he is writing .
N-L: Do you have any noteworthy hobbies that would surprise your students?
JH: I’m a huge sports fan, and I had my glory days playing football in high school. I was a wide receiver and then got a horrible knee injury and couldn’t play anymore, but I was voted on my 8th grade team most likely to make the pros.
I am a huge sports fan and my most recent sports addiction is English Premier League (EPL) soccer. I’ve got way to many EPL blogs and sites bookmarked on my laptop.
N-L: Have any advice for students interested in majoring in English?
JH: I would say to students that the English department is — at the undergrad level — the best kept secret at Hopkins because, myself excluded, we have a really remarkable and internationally renowned faculty.
You have the opportunity as an English major at Hopkins to take a small seminar with as few as five students with the likes of Eric Sundquist or Sharon Cameron or Amanda Anderson.
These are internationally renowned literary scholars, who have heaps of fellowships and awards to their name, and you can sit down around a table, have their full attention and try out your ideas.
I think if more undergrads were aware of the quality and reputation of the English faculty they would come running.
