Fall 2012 Travel

The College reserves the right to change course offerings and scheduling.

In this section you will find a comprehensive overview of Franklin College's Academic Travel course offerings. For the most current list or if you would like to plan your Academic Travel Program, please visit My Franklin.

Academic Travel Programs scheduled for Fall 2012 are as follows:

TVL 213 Geneva, Brussels, Paris, Strasbourg
Professor Schlein

(International Organizations and their Role in Today's World) This program focuses on international organizations; how they are organized and operate, and how they deal with particular problems. Students are introduced to salient aspects of international politics and economics in Europe and to the political, economic and financial aspects of international integration and interdependence. These themes are underlined with visits to international organizations. Students visit Brussels and Strasbourg where the groups are hosted by the European Union Commission and Parliament and are directly informed about the progress being made towards European economic and political integration. In Brussels, a visit to N.A.T.O brings students up-to-date on the changes in strategy that this security organization is developing to cope with the changes in the international system and to maintain security and stability among the member states. Visits to Geneva and Paris in addition to Brussels and Strasbourg provide the opportunity to get to know a wide range of international organizations and their activities. In Geneva the students visit the United Nations at the Palais des Nations, the World Trade Organization, the UN High Commission for Refugees and in Paris the group visits the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the most important organization for economic analysis and forecasting, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

TVL 218 Seville and Andalusia
Professor Bottacchi

(From Antiquity to the Present) This visit introduces students to the history, culture, politics, and arts of Spanish civilization of Andalusia and southern Spain. Students will be based in Seville as they are introduced to the region and its cities including Grenada, Malaga, Cadiz, Cordoba, Marbella, Antequera, and Gibraltar. It is in this region the students will be introduced to the classical heritage of Spain: Roman, Visigothic, Moorish, and the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic dimensions of its past. The visit then proceeds to the coast to Malaga and surrounding area. Throughout this entire Program students will be introduced to the modern and traditional aspects of Spanish culture and politics with visits to historical sites and museums. In each city the Program Director, guides, and specialists, will lecture on particular, relevant topics.

TVL 237 New York/Washington
Professor Zanecchia

(Business, Politics, Economy, History, Communication and Culture) The Academic Travel Program to New York City and Washington, D.C. focuses on the global influence of business, culture, and communication institutions in these important U.S. cities. Business visits will include the New York Stock Exchange, Paine Webber and Panta Corporation in New York and the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and U.S. Mint in Washington. Cultural visits will include a variety of museums (the Metropolitan and Guggenheim in New York and the Smithsonian and National Gallery in Washington) and live events (Theatre District in New York and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington). Communication visits in both cities will include a major television network (CBS) and newspaper (Washington Post). Other site visits will include the United Nations, the Statue of Liberty, and the World Trade Center in New York, and the White House, The Capitol, and a variety of national monuments and memorials (Lincoln, Jefferson, and Vietnam Memorials, Holocaust Museum) in Washington. Optional dinner, shopping and entertainment trips will also be available. Travel Supplement: CHF 1,650 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 1,650 (for students invoiced in USD).

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 277 Turkey
Professor Rocourt

(Turkey: the old and the new) Clichés about Turkey's unique cultural and geopolitical status abound. Is it part of Europe or part of Asia? Is it an Islamic republic or a European-style democracy? An original member of NATO, Turkey is today still only reluctantly embraced by the European Union, with full membership far from a certainty. The focus of the trip will be upon developing an understanding of why all the disparate and even paradoxical descriptions contain a kernel of truth. Modern Turkey has evolved from a unique historic blend of Greco-Roman culture, Byzantine dominance, and Ottoman politics, culture and religion, all of which were brought into the modern age by the political will of Ataturk starting in the 1920's. Destinations include Istanbul's innumerable historical and cultural shrines along with the modern corporate and university environment; Ankara, selected by Ataturk in the centre of the peninsula to be the heart of the new Turkish politics; and the South Mediterranean coast (Antalya/Alanya) with a focus upon Greco-Roman and medieval history, as well as modern-day tourism and agriculture. Readings will include an Ottoman history and a biography of Ataturk.

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 301 Holocaust, Memory and the Invention of the Past, Krakow, Warsaw, and Berlin
Professor Wiedmer

We live in an epoch obsessed with memory: its specter haunts an array of activities - intellectual, creative, and political; its processes shadow our individual and collective lives. And yet, despite this ubiquity, the idea of memory remains elusive and forever mutable, for depending on the context in which it is invoked and the purpose for which it is intended it can take on a range of forms. The contexts in which we will study the workings of memory are Auschwitz, the Warsaw Ghetto and Berlin--places which in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries have come to stand for different aspects of the murderous history of the Holocaust. The questions guiding our inquiry into the often conflicted postwar politics of memory in Germany and Poland are the following: how does a nation deploy memory to create a positive identity? How do public representations work to elide, confirm or undermine the constantly shifting historical discourses? To what extent, finally, are minorities or "the other" included in, or excluded from, the business of inventing national identity? We will read, visit and analyze a wide variety of cultural texts such as literary accounts, memorials, historical sites, exhibits, architectural structures, and films in an attempt to chart the often tortured process by which a nation comes to terms with its past, and projects itself into the future. Using some of the rich scholarly literature on memory that has been produced in the wake of the Holocaust, we will examine sites in Poland and Berlin for a cultural comparison of how our core questions are inflected by different sets of political circumstances and cultural pressures.

TVL 304 Cyprus
Professor Mottale

(Ethnic division, its causes and attempts at resolution) Students will be introduced to millenarian civilizations of Cyprus and will become acquainted with the Turkish and Greek cultural components on the island. This travel program will focus on the history, culture, politics, and arts of this island and its final evolution from a British colony, to a divided and segmented republic with membership in the European Union. Politics permitting, students will be visiting the main urban centers on both sides of the divide such as Larnaka, Limassol, Nicosia, and Famagusta. A particular focus will be placed on the synthesis of civilizations that have come to influence the cultural and physical landscape of the area. Emphasis will be put on salient aspects of Classical Greek civilization, its symbiosis with Roman rule, and the evolution of Byzantine imperial domination, Orthodox Christianity and Crusader rule, through Venetian hegemony, and Ottoman-Islamic control. Students will also be introduced to the modern dynamic elements of the island, shaped by a British presence that lasted almost ninety years and still persists to this day. The final aim of this academic travel is to gain an insight into the multifaceted historical identity of the Cypriot population.

TVL 312 Florence, Lucca and Siena
Professor Gebhardt

This Academic Travel highlights Florence, Lucca and Siena in central Italy. These three cities have a turbulent history, from which emerged perhaps the most explosive manifestation of art in the western world. We will try to follow their history from the Roman (and Etruscan) origins, focusing on their development during the medieval period, up to and including the Renaissance. Visits in Florence include the towers of the Cerchi and the Donati, la Torre della Castagna (the first town hall) Palazzo Vecchio, Bargello, and Torre della Pagliuzza, as well as the important churches, the Cathedral, the Palazzo Medici, and the Accademia. We will subsequently travel to Lucca and Siena and discuss their development during this period and their relationship to Florence. Although they both offer a similar history with divisions and wars between families and with neighboring cities, we will examine their individual characteristics. Prior to departure, students will be introduced to the development of the political situation from the medieval city-state to the Signorie of the Renaissance, and to the life and works of the most representative personalities (political, literary and artistic) of this period.

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 323 Scotland: Symbolizing Scottish "Folk"
Professor Vogelaar

Concurrent with the trends of "globalization" over the past 30 years, there has been a re-emergent, if not reactionary, interest in the notion of "folk" (or "local"/"popular") culture. Although the (re)emergence of and interest in folk culture is geographically widespread, it is often associated with Great Britain and Ireland where long clashes over regional independence and class tensions have inspired strong "folk" cultures that have served as powerful sources of identification and allegiance. This program explores the significance of the notion of "folk" in Scottish culture as it permeates Scottish art, humor, music and dance, language and other symbol systems (e.g. tartans, coats of arms) and social practices (e.g. education, cuisine, sports, pub culture). During this travel program will explore the following questions: What does "folk" mean? What is Scottish folk culture? What are its distinct cultural representations? What cultural "work" does it do? In order to explore these questions, we will visit cultural sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh, neighboring Fife, and may include a trip to Aberdeen. Visits and sites many include the National Museum of Scotland, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, the International Comedy Festival, Glasgow's famous "King Tuts," the University of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, a distillery tour, and a soccer match.

TVL 332 Iceland
Professor Hale

Few places in the world experience the diversity of natural phenomena that Iceland does. Its landscape reads as a textbook where students can explore plate tectonics, volcanoes, glaciers (the largest in Europe), and other physical forces that continually shape and reshape the natural landscape. Icelanders take advantage of their natural resources to create a society that in 2010 ranks number one on the Environmental Performance Index. In this course, students will use Iceland as a field laboratory to study physical geography and sustainability. This course is also designed to demonstrate and introduce students to the concepts of sustainable travel. As a focus of the course will be to explore the physical landscape, students will be outdoors frequently. Given the regional climate, students should be prepared for freezing and wet conditions and dress appropriately. Travel Supplement: CHF 500 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 500 (for students invoiced in USD)

TVL 333 The Republic of Venice, c. 500-1797, between History and Art
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 Jones

(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 339 The Baltics: Observing Economic and Cult
Professor Cordon

The Baltic Countries have shifted between Russian and Western European influence areas for centuries. In 1940 they were annexed by the Soviet Union and spent the next 50 years under a Communist regime. Independence and the radical changes that began in 1991 have created tremendous challenges and opportunities for these countries. The focus of this trip is to try to understand the history of the Baltic Countries and the changes taking place today. The group will visit their western-oriented capitals: Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn. Lectures, meetings with local students, and visits to their spectacular Old Towns will provide the basis for understanding their recent history and present situation. In addition students will visit Helsinki, capital of Finland, for a brief introduction to another important player in the region and some discussion of their relations to Europe and Russia.

TVL 341 Communication and Media in Everyday Life: South Korea (Seoul and Chuncheon)
Professor Sugiyama

This academic travel offers students an opportunity to examine the contemporary culture in South Korea from a communication and media studies perspective. Through conducting a field observation study and interacting with local college students and professors, our class will seek to develop an in-depth understanding of the communication processes in everyday life and the role media technologies play in the context of contemporary South Korean culture. The course assignments will include academic readings, research paper, and presentation, and students will be expected to learn the basics of field observation method. Some background in communication and media studies are highly recommended, but students who are motivated in gaining an understanding of the field are also encouraged to participate. Travel Supplement: CHF 1,000 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 1,000 (for students invoiced in USD)

TVL 343 Marche and Umbria: A cultural and literary journey
Professor Lazzari

This course offers an introduction to cultural and literary expressions of the regions Umbria and Marche, in Italy. Students will visit the Gradara castle located closed to the famous Riviera Romagnola, where the tragedy of Paolo and Francesca, narrated in Dante's Inferno, took place. In Recanati they will discover the house of another major Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi. By visiting Assisi, the life and work of Saint Frances, author of the first literary production in Italian literature, will be introduced. The travel will also include the visit of the city of Urbino, the "Museo della carta e della filigrana" in Fabriano, and the Grotte di Frasassi. Since food and manufacturing are also part of Italian culture, workshops on Italian cuisine and visit to ateliers may be organized.

TVL 344 Bloomsbury Britain
Professor Peat

This travel course will go from the Bloomsbury area of central London to other locations in southern England. The thematic focus of the trip will be the Bloombsury Group, a loose network of writers, artists, and intellectuals (including Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, and Roger Fry) who gathered in Bloomsbury during the first decades of the twentieth century. We will visit a variety of locations associated with the Bloomsbury Group and, as we do so, we will imagine the life and culture of Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. As well as visiting the various Bloomsbury squares where members of the group lived and worked, a selection of museums and galleries, the famous bookstores on Charing Cross Road, and Kew gardens, we will also travel outside of London to such places as Cambridge, Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, and Charleston and Monks House in Sussex.

TVL 346 Art, politics, landscape: Ireland and Northern Ireland
Professor Gee

This travel course focuses on the relation between the visual arts, politics and landscape in Ireland and Northern Ireland. It emphasizes the role played by culture and aesthetics in the shaping of territorial identities on the Island, as well as the historical evolution of conflicting socio-political configurations whose physical modelling of the landscape will also be scrutinized. The latter in particular is understood as a crucial nexus of singular and interacting identities in the context of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, and one particularly conductive to aesthetic exploration. The course includes visits to Belfast and Derry in Northern Ireland, where both the ancient and more recent wall partitions of the cities will be discussed along the significant art historical development that occurred during the period of the Troubles. Contemporary artistic dynamisms and regeneration trends will also be a focal point, while the Giant Causeway will be considered with respect to the embededness of mythology and history in the very soil of the region. In the South, the course will include visits to the important creative centre of Limerick and the Western coast, as well as the rebel county of Cork. These visits will further the course's reflection on the imprint of historical legacies in urban landscapes. The urban fabric of Dublin and its important art collections and museums will equally bring the course to study the island's heritage and the set of contemporary political and economic issues that surround it. The course is grounded on a series of visual arts and architectural explorations. Further readings include literature, poetry, and historical writings.