The liberal arts are the heart of a university education. They include all the subjects included in the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the fine arts. In other words, a liberal art is almost anything you can major in at a university.
But when we talk about a “liberal arts education” in the U. S., we are talking less about specific courses, subjects, and departments than about more universal goals, benefits, and skills. To that end, the Peabody Liberal Arts department is committed to helping students learn how to:
Build community
Think independently, creatively, and critically
Communicate, read communicate, and argue from evidence
Look at the world from cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives
Encourage active engagement with a changing world.
Peabody undergraduates complete 30 credits of in the Liberal Arts. Most students will do this by enrolling in a one-year core curriculum (6 credits) and then taking eight elective classes (24 credits). Though students are able to fulfill all of their liberal arts credits on the Peabody campus, they have the option to take courses at other Johns Hopkins campuses or at other institutions.
Students needing intense writing instruction will take six credits of Writing Intensive before beginning the core curriculum.
The Language Program offers full-year 6-credit courses in French I, German I, and Italian I, as well as German II, to meet the requirements of Peabody Voice Majors. Language courses at Peabody focus primarily on language acquisition. Languages may also be taken as electives to meet Liberal Arts requirements after completion of the Core Curriculum.
Departmental Absence Policy
Liberal arts classes are spaces for the creation of new ideas in an intellectual community. Therefore, student attendance is required. Students are encouraged to make wise choices about their own time; as such, no distinction is made between excused and unexcused absences.
At the discretion of each professor, the Liberal Arts department adheres to the following attendance policy:
For classes meeting once per week, students with four absences may not pass the course.
For classes meeting twice per week, students with six absences may not pass the course.
For classes meeting three times per week, students with eight absences may not pass the course.
Students are advised to withdraw from a class rather than fail due to poor attendance.
Faculty
Francesco Brenna
His research and publications focus on Renaissance Italian literature, especially treatises on poetics, epic, and sacred poetry, the relationship between Italian and English literature, and the relationship between literature and other disciplines such as sport, science, and music.
He co-edited a special issue of MLN dedicated to Charles S. Singleton’s legacy in Dante studies (Johns Hopkins University Press) and a volume on the connections between literature and science in the early modern age (Franco Cesati). His research has also appeared on journals such as I Tatti Studies, Forum Italicum, Italianistica, Paragone letteratura, Seicento e Settecento, and Milton Quarterly.
He studied jazz piano and arrangement and took courses at the Peabody Institute. While in New York, he has been composing and collaborating with lyricists and librettists for musical theater projects in workshops run by the Dramatist Guild Institute. He enjoys teaching Italian to music students and integrating language learning and music.
Daniel H. Foster
Daniel H. Foster chairs the Liberal Arts Department at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. As an educator, he champions liberal arts education by focusing less on what we teach than how we teach and by creating courses that help create community. In the U. S., Foster has served as Associate Professor of Theater Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Duke University. In the U. K., at University of East Anglia, he was the Director of the Media Center and a Senior Lecturer in Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing. In Europe, he played various administrative and educational roles during the inaugural year of Bard College in Berlin (at that time, the European College of Liberal Arts), including Assistant Professor and Admissions and Financial Aid Director. He has held fellowships at Cambridge University (Corpus Christi College), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Duke University, and the University of Pennsylvania Music Department. As an interdisciplinary scholar in music, literature, and drama, he is the author of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and the Greeks (Cambridge 2010) and is currently working on From Bards to Blackface, or How the Minstrel Changed His Tune. He publishes in both academic and crossover journals and news outlets. From Journal of American Drama and Theatre and Times Higher Ed to Smithsonian Magazine and the Huffington Post. He also has practical experience in drama and music as a composer, director, producer, and dramaturge in both new media and live performance.
Carol Haddaway
Carol Haddaway is a part-time faculty for the ESL 1 classes. She most recently served as a Senior English Language Fellow of the U.S. Department of State at Yangon University in Myanmar and in similar postings in Belarus, Ukraine and Syria where in addition to teaching English, she conducted teacher training methodology, developed curricula and materials. Carol started her ESL career with Anne Arundel Community College as an ESL Instructional Specialist and was also an adjunct teacher trainer with UMBC in the e-Teacher Scholarship Program and the English Language Institute. She also worked as a project officer in the Asia/Near East Divisions at Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs in the School of Public Health. She holds a M.A. degree in Instructional Systems Design, ESOL Bilingual from the University of Maryland (UMBC) and a M.Sc. degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences from JHU.
Laura Kafka-Price
Laura Kafka-Price, instructor of French, earned a PhD in musicology from the University of Maryland at College Park and degrees in voice and French from University of Alaska and Methodist University in NC. She has taught music and foreign languages at various levels of instruction including University of Maryland College Park, Georgetown University, Shippensburg University and L’École d’Immersion Française Robert Goddard. She has articles and reviews among her publications and numerous concert and recital engagements.
Meryl Lauer
Meryl Lauer is a cultural anthropologist specializing in ethnographies of bodily practice. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Minnesota, where she was a Mellon fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, and a BA in dance from Barnard College. She was previously a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton College, a visiting fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research at University of Western Cape, and a visiting researcher at the University of Witwatersrand. She is a current associate member of the University Seminar on Dance at Columbia University. Lauer’s research explores how codified movement practices engage with or resist larger structures of power. Her current research project, an ethnography of South African ballet, examines everyday choreographies of social inequality, made apparent in dance practice and performance.
Since joining the Peabody faculty in 2019, Lauer has received generous support for her research including the University-wide Research Accelerator Grant and Peabody’s inaugural Dean’s Excellence Accelerator Award.
Lauer’s courses pull from across anthropology, feminist and queer studies, Africana studies, and postcolonial theory to build students’ skills in critical engagement and challenge students to think beyond the familiar.
Ahlam Musa
Ahlam Musa has taught both English and Arabic for nearly 20 years in a variety of U.S. university and K-12 school settings as well as in the Middle East. She obtained her PhD in curriculum and instruction focusing on second language education from Texas A&M University and has continued learning ever since. In addition to ESL classes, she has taught linguistics and teacher-education courses. She has also administered a number of ESL programs for both adults and children and served as an academic coordinator for EFL teachers in an international teacher-training program at the University of Delaware. Ahlam’s research interests include heritage language maintenance, diglossia, second language assessment, and teacher education. Ahlam enjoys learning about other languages and cultures to promote cross-cultural understanding and respect, which are values she tries to instill in her four children.
Oliver Thorndike
On sabbatical Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
Oliver Thorndike is a philosopher specializing in the exploration of the relationship between historical problems in philosophy and contemporary questions about consciousness, emotion, and human experience. His interdisciplinary approach bridges philosophy, art, and scientific research on the mind. He earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and regularly teaches courses in Philosophy of Art, Existentialism, and Contemporary Philosophy.
Andrea Westcot
Andrea Westcot is an Instructor in the Liberal Arts Department at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She earned her MA in United States History and her PhD in American Studies from the College of William and Mary, and a BA in History and English from Case Western Reserve University. She is a historian and cultural theorist, specializing in early American history, women's and gender history, cultural history, and intersectional feminisms. As a teacher, Westcot has focused on inclusive pedagogies, research and writing instruction, and learner-centered teaching.
Prior to teaching at Peabody, Westcot taught in the Focused Inquiry department at Virginia Commonwealth University, an interdisciplinary program for the first-year experience that focused on writing, research critical thinking, and active citizenship. Here at Peabody, Westcot has taught courses on academic writing, introduction to the Liberal Arts, United States history, and feminist theory.
