Study Abroad Courses
Each spring I offer a semester-long undergraduate English literature course with a study-abroad component. Students accompany me to Britain over Spring Break for eight days of on-site international study experience.
ENG 400: THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON
Nineteenth-century crime and mystery novels continue to haunt our imagination of London: the city still derives some of its allure from its associations with Victorian gaslights, cobblestone alleyways, foggy nights, detectives, opium dens, and the occasional serial killer. Through a combination of coursework in Syracuse and eight days of on-site study in London over spring break, this course examines the mysteries and mystery literature of Victorian London and their continued fascination for contemporary novelists, filmmakers, and tourists. Site visits include: various sites associated with Sherlock Holmes; the creepy West Cemetery at Highgate; the law buildings, prisons, courthouses, execution sites, and back alleys immortalized by Charles Dickens; the smugglers’ steps, warehouses, and old sailors’ pubs that line the Thames River; and the East End neighborhoods terrorized in 1888 by Jack the Ripper. We also do some decidedly less grim forms of on-site study related to the course, including visiting some of the world’s premiere art and design museums, a stunning cathedral, a perfectly preserved Victorian townhouse, and a suburban London manor house.
ENG 400: JANE AUSTEN IN CONTEXT
Eight days of on-site study in England complement a semester of on-campus coursework analyzing Jane Austen’s novels. For the first half of the semester, we learn about early 19th-century Britain by reading Austen’s novels alongside other texts from the period. For the second half of the semester, we study our modern, global world through the uses that different people, groups, and media make of Austen’s novels today. The complementary halves of the course are bridged by a trip to England over Spring Break, where site visits include London, the resort town of Bath, the naval shipyards of Portsmouth, the university town of Oxford, several grand English country houses and gardens, a ruined Gothic abbey, a stunning coastal hike, and the rural village of Chawton in which Austen wrote many of her novels. [Note: This program will next be offered in Spring 2022.]