Academic Travel Choices

Academic Travel is a one-credit course which includes pre- and post-trip meetings and a 10 to 14 - day journey. The Academic Travel Program is an integrated part of the Franklin College curriculum. Academic Travel is a credit-bearing degree requirement, and two weeks of travel each semester represent an extension of students’ class work. Travel is led by our faculty members and relates to the academic expertise of the individual professor and to his or her knowledge of a given country or area. All students, including semester and year-abroad students, are required to participate in the Academic Travel Program.

Academic Travel Choices/First Year Experience

TVL 200 Rome and Southern Italy
Professor Mottale

The Academic Travel Program to Rome, its surrounding region, and some parts of Southern Italy offers students an opportunity to explore and learn about key period of Western Civilizations and Italian history. Students will be introduced to Greek and Roman culture, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance period as well as the realities of 21st century Italy. This travel will include visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum to explore early and recent archeological sites. The trip will also include visits to the Naples, the Amalfi coast, and Sorrento. The main focus will be on Rome and its civilization as the basis for the political and artistic foundations of European societies.

TVL 225 Northern Italy
Professor Polich

(From Antiquity to the Present) This Program introduces students to the history, politics, culture, and present day social and economic life of Northern Italy. Students may visit, among other destinations, Venice, Padova, Ravenna, Verona, Bologna, Torino, Bolzano and South Tyrol, Trieste and the Italian Riviera. In addition to historical, artistic and naturalistic tours to further the comprehension of the traditions of Northern Italian civilization, there will be scheduled visits to local industries and international businesses in some selected areas. In each city, the program director, guides and specialists will lecture on particular relevant topics. Students will be expected to integrate the past and the present with an eye toward an under- standing of the future developments of the area in a united Europe.

TVL 241 Ireland
Professor Matthews

20th Century Irish Literature The primary focus of this program is on Irish writing in the 20th century and its relationship to the writers' artistic, intellectual, social, and geographic backgrounds. It aims to make students aware of the peculiarly intimate connection of Irish writing to the Irish context. The idea and the actuality of the country were equally crucial for the Irish writers of the last century and the travel aims to bring the wealth of issues involved therein to life. Places such as Dublin, Sligo and Belfast are visited and the relationship to city, landscape and history of such writers as W.B.Yeats, James Joyce and Seamus Heaney are explored. Students learn to place a writer's words in the concrete physical and atmospheric context from which these sprang and to develop thereby a truly living sense of (Irish) literature. This program is oriented toward students interested in literature, history, politics, sociology, and cross-cultural studies.

TVL 247 Venice and its lagoon
Professor Terzi

(History / Economics / Politics / Art / Literature / Environment) This cross-disciplinary academic travel program explores the historical, cultural, and environmental dimensions of the city of Venice from a variety of angles. This includes the origin of Venice as a Byzantine province, the development of political institutions, the origin of banking, the flourishing of commerce, the architecture and the art, and the role of Venice as a world political and financial power. Special attention will be given to the environmental system of the Venice lagoon that nourished and sustained the city of Venice throughout centuries. The symbiotic relationship of Venice with its lagoon will be considered with respect to current environmental questions and problems related to sustainable tourism. The itinerary will centre on Venice, its lagoon, its surroundings, and normally includes a 2-day cruise.

TVL 297 Lausanne, Geneva and the Alps
Professor Steinert Borella

(Travel Writing/Writing Travel) From the salons of Mme de Stael to twentieth-century travel writers Nicolas Bouvier and Ella Maillart, French-speaking Switzerland has been home to a rich literary tradition. This course will offer an introduction to the travel literature of French-speaking Switzerland in English translation. (Students who can will be encouraged to read in the original French). Authors studied will include Rousseau, Madame de Stael, Nicolas Bouvier, Anne Deriaz and Ella Maillart. Course will include visits to the Val d'Anniviers in the Valais, Lausanne, Coppet, and Geneva as well as an excursion to the watch-making region in and around La Chaux-de-Fonds, named a UNESCO cultural site in 2009. In addition to museum and chateau visits, this class will include several writing workshops and meetings with contemporary Swiss writers.

TVL 321 Paris - The Visual Culture
Professor Fassl

The Visual Culture of Paris will examine a wide range of visual art movements that originated in Paris or for which the city was a major source of inspiration. The emphasis is on nineteenth and twentieth century art, exploring movements such as Realism, Impressionism and Postimpressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. A major subject of investigation and discussion will be photography and what role it played in the development of Modern art. We will use the Paris and its museums to ask ourselves what role the city, its visual and intellectual culture, played in inspiring the articulation and evolution of these movements? What is the effect of Paris on the creative eye today? Our major project will be a sketchbook in which students will engage with these questions, as well as visual and oral presentations.

TVL 331 Following the Rhine
Professor Gardiner

This travel course aims literally to follow the Rhine, from its humble beginnings near Reichenau, Switzerland, to its many branches in the North Sea. Thethematic focus of the trip will be the river itself: economically, politically, historically, and environmentally, one of the most important in Europe. By visiting several cities along the way: Schaffhausen, Basel, Strasbourg, Mainz, Bonn, Utrecht and Rotterdam, for example, students will be asked to consider how the Rhine has influenced cultural development on either side of it, how people have historically used and abused it, and how citizens currently need it: for transportation, agriculture, urban drinking and sanitation needs, hydroelectric production and recreation, among others. The class includes pre-travel class meetings to discuss a variety of readings, the travel itself (if at all financially possible by using some river travel), and a post-travel meeting to wrap up the course and draw overall conclusions.

TVL 333 The Republic of Venice, c. 500-1797
Professor Orsi

Venice is the only famous Italian city that can be said to not have had a Roman foundation. Born of the water sometime during the fifth century, the result of the aggregation of a number of maritime communities spread in the Laguna, by the early ninth century she had become an independent city state, with a locally elected duca and a democratic government independent from Byzantium. In her eleven centuries of history as a free and independent republic (specifically, an oligarchy of "noblemen" with no aristocratic hierarchies), Venice gave birth to a number of political, artistic and literary myths, and imposed herself as the bridge between West and East, not just at commercial level, but also in terms of artistic and literary invention, becoming one of the major powers in world history, particularly so during the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Our focus will be the history and artistic heritage of the "Serenissima" ("The Most Serene"), as she was called, from her tip-toe beginnings to her long yet luminous decline, which paved the way to the French conquest of 1797. We will spend five days in Venice and five days traveling in the "mainland." We will visit towns and cities that were part of the Venetian Republic; among them, Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Chioggia; Brescia, and Bergamo. The course is taught in Italian and is part of the Italian Immersion program.

TVL 334 Eastern Europe: Service Leadership
Professor Carpenter

(Facilitating the Progress of Individuals, Communities and Society) This travel experience will focus on organized service and the ways in which community-based service efforts affect social change in Eastern Europe. The course will explore the effectiveness and value of community service organizations, the leadership of such organizations and the challenges they face. Participants in this travel will develop an understanding of the strategies employed by government and non-government organizations to address the needs of various populations within a larger society. The course revolves around travel to and active participation in the life of a host community during the duration of the travel period. The immersion experience and associated assignments are specifically intended for students interested in personal involvement in social justice and service leadership. At the travel site, students will be required to perform service work and participate in additional activities. Students should expect service projects that may include painting, basic construction, clean-up and general construction duties. Elementary school visits that include tutoring, teacher assistance and interaction with local children are also in consideration. Participants should expect a significant amount of activity that may require a serious degree of physical ability. Service projects associated with this Travel may include heavy lifting, digging, basic construction, and basic landscaping tasks. Specific destination will be announced in August.

TVL 334 Eastern Europe: Service Leadership
Professor Muehlethaler

(Facilitating the Progress of Individuals, Communities and Society) This travel experience will focus on organized service and the ways in which community-based service efforts affect social change in Eastern Europe. The course will explore the effectiveness and value of community service organizations, the leadership of such organizations and the challenges they face. Participants in this travel will develop an understanding of the strategies employed by government and non-government organizations to address the needs of various populations within a larger society. The course revolves around travel to and active participation in the life of a host community during the duration of the travel period. The immersion experience and associated assignments are specifically intended for students interested in personal involvement in social justice and service leadership. At the travel site, students will be required to perform service work and participate in additional activities. Students should expect service projects that may include painting, basic construction, clean-up and general construction duties. Elementary school visits that include tutoring, teacher assistance and interaction with local children are also in consideration. Participants should expect a significant amount of activity that may require a serious degree of physical ability. Service projects associated with this Travel may include heavy lifting, digging, basic construction, and basic landscaping tasks. Specific destination will be announced in August.