In the wake of Donald Trump’s election last November, some Hopkins professors have adapted their courses to address how Trump may change the United States. These instructors encourage their students to think critically about the academic implications of the new president’s rhetoric and policies.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Daniel Schlozman, who teaches his course “Parties and Elections in America” every election season, explained how he altered the course specifically for the 2016 race.
“I added a day called ‘The Convulsions on the Right’ to talk about what’s been happening to the Republican Party and conservatism,” Schlozman said. “I added a reading about Southern suffrage restrictions from the end of the nineteenth century to make the point that democratization in the United States is not, and has not been historically, a one-way street.”
Schlozman also compared this past semester’s class to previous years.
“Students vary and years vary, but I think that the emotional register of this election was higher and temperatures ran hotter,” Schlozman said. “[There were] remarkably intelligent, thoughtful class discussions, which were not always easy.”
He had hoped to foster debate on how the election divided the United States.
“The goal was to shed light on issues around which there was a fair amount of heat,” he said. “We figured out that in a lot of ways this election was perfectly ordinary, and the ways in which it was extraordinary had some roots that an understanding of the American party system and American political history could help to explicate.”
While some courses were altered slightly to address the Trump administration, others were created anew to respond to Trump’s rise in popularity during the election. Visiting Associate Professor in the Writing Seminars Wayne Biddle offered a new course called “Nonfiction in the Post-Factual Era.”
Biddle explained that this course stems from another course he used to teach called, “Non-fiction and Non-fact.”
“[In the course] we talked about the grey area between nonfiction and fiction,” he said. “The current political phenomenon is the latest manifestation. The difference between truth and falsity is a subject that’s been bantered around for thousands of years.”
However, this new course is designed for students with an interest in journalism who are trying to understand the power dynamics between the media and those in positions of political power.
“I want to provide some historical and even philosophical background so that students can have some intellectual ammunition to sort out what is a very complicated subject,” Biddle said. “What does one do when the genre itself is being subverted the way it currently is by political attacks?”
Senior Jesse Shuman, an aspiring essayist, wrote in an email to The News-Letter that the course has given him a new perspective on journalism.
“As young writers, it often feels like our future occupations, whose role is to uncover and report on the truth, are powerless because people are refusing to listen,” he wrote.
Shuman explained that the class has given him a better understanding of the role of journalism in criticizing politics, particularly in the face of what he calls the corruption of truth.
“What we’re seeing today, it’s hidden behind labels like fake news or alternative facts,” he wrote. “It’s important to address this because the media is the institution that is supposed to hold those in power accountable. A deliberate attempt to silence them, or label them the enemy, demonstrates not only a political danger, but a larger threat against any form of critical thinking.”
The course was planned before the election, but Biddle said he designed it to be adaptable so that students could apply their established understanding to current events.
“This notion of post-truth or post-fact has been in the air now for several years,” he said. “I had been looking for ways to systematize thinking about it.”
Senior Hannah Danziger, a student in Biddle’s class, said that the course would be very different had Trump lost the election last year.
“This course obviously has been set up for months, but then with the election I think the professor had to adjust his expectations because the course was just naturally going to take a totally different route,” she said.
Danziger said that Biddle told them on the first day that it would be the most topical class they would ever take because they would be looking at things as they happened. She explained that the Trump administration provides ongoing material for the class.
As the Trump administration rolls out new policies, other courses like “Elements of Macroeconomics” taught by Professor of Economics Robert Barbera, are indirectly addressing Trump’s actions.
According to Barbera, his course aims to provide students with the necessary tools to think critically about Trump, but through an economic lens.
“It’s an invitation to try to get better in the way you think about things,” he said. “What I got out of Hopkins was an appreciation of the fact that you don’t stop, you’re constantly trying to get better.”
However, Barbera emphasized that his frustration comes from some of Trump’s economic claims rather than any personal political biases.
“What I’d like to do is frame this outside of the normal liberal-conservative debate,” Barbera said. “I know people who have strongly held views on both sides of the aisle that they can articulate intelligently... The hard part for me with the campaign and now the initial hints from the administration is so much of what has been championed is demonstrably nonsense.”
Barbera also said that it was difficult to ignore some of Trump’s claims even in an introductory class, so it was instead important to understand them.
“The whole alt-facts fanciful commentary that enveloped so many other spheres in the administration is certainly front and center,” he said. “Making an effort, being rigorous and understanding things is a plus. That’s the beginning of what I’m offering up in class, being thoughtful and being confronted with such thoughtless demagoguery.”
Freshman Grace Troy elaborated on how Barbera addressed Trump in class.
“He felt that Donald Trump was not very educated in the claims he was making,” she said. “The entire semester we’d be learning about how trade is beneficial, so just Donald Trump’s anti-trade, America-first rhetoric really makes no sense.”
Troy said that although the class primarily focused on economics, it did also invite some discussion of individual views.
“He looked at it more from the economics than taking a personal stance against Trump’s social agenda,” Troy said. “It was more like Trump’s economic agenda, and then Barbera also let his personal bias in a little bit throwing some digs.”
Elaborating on why she thinks it’s important to address Trump, Troy emphasized how important it is to think critically about the administration.
“We don’t live in a bubble,” she said. “He’ll still be president when we get out. It definitely affects our lives in the future, it affects our lives right now. I think it’s good to stay informed and not just pretend that we aren’t affected by what goes on outside Hopkins.”
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