• Explore the historical development of the African Diaspora in an Arab Society • Examine Arab history and culture from the perspective of Afro-Arab women • Study Dubai’s rise from being a pearling and fishing village to a global trading and tourism hub • Learn documentary film-making • Meet Emirati religious leader and Arab news editors and journalists • Visit Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, one of the largest in the world

The Galápagos Islands are one of the few places on earth where large animals (especially birds) do not possess an innate fear of potential predators. This unusual behavioral pattern coupled with the amazing abundance and diversity of the island fauna, create an extremely unique opportunity to observe, characterize, and record animal behavior under natural conditions. It is often said that the Galápagos are a laboratory of evolutionary biology; however, we will see that these islands provide one of the best outdoor laboratories of animal behavior. Students will bring video recording equipment and each of several small groups will produce a video documentary of animal behavior in the Galápagos Islands.

This program will focus on tropical marine and marginal marine organisms and their interactions with the physical environments. The goal is to better understand the tropical reef, mangrove and seagrass ecosystems and the stresses being placed upon them. Fieldwork will be an essential part of our study, and the program is designed to appeal to students interested in biology, geology and environmental science.

The program is based in Nankai University, which is located in Tianjin, in the heart of Mandarin-speaking China. Other sites will also be included for our studies and activities. One of China’s most prestigious universities, Nankai has more than 20,000 students in 20 colleges. The University offers over 70 undergraduate majors, 200 master’s degrees, and 100 PhD programs. Set in a quiet and beautiful environment, the University is an ideal setting for study and scholarly research. Nankai University has a historical commitment to language study and the College of Chinese Language and Culture specializes in the training of students from many countries. Other institutions of higher education may be selected due to possible changing conditions at our base university.

Tanzania and Ethiopia are excellent places to study the conflict between conservation and development. Tanzania has one of the largest concentrations of wildlife in the world while the majority of the population lives in poverty. Similarly, Ethiopia is one of the twelve centers of crop genetic diversity in the world. Students will stay and work out of rustic places. The academic program will largely be centered on directed learning modules and independent fieldwork; teamwork will be emphasized. Visits to cultural sites and interactions with Tanzanian and Ethiopian scientists will be important aspects of the program.

Prague has been at the forefront of the sweeping social, cultural, and economic transformations of Central Europe. To help experience the culture and history of the region firsthand, students will participate in lectures, discussions, cultural events, walking tours, and out-of-town trips. There will be a number of single-day and multi-day excursions to other sites in the region, including Krakow and the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, Poprad and the High Tatra mountains in Slovakia, and the medieval towns of Kutna Hora and Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic.

There is still so much to learn about the millions of organisms—many as yet unidentified—that inhabit this planet. On this program, we will spend the majority of our time outside, learning how we, as scientists, can address many of biology’s most exciting questions by gathering data where organisms live and die: in the field. Australia is an ideal place to learn about the challenges and opportunities associated with field research. Australia offers myriad habitats, all teeming with its unique flora and fauna. By studying these organisms in the wild, we can learn about their evolutionary history, their ecological present, and the uncertain future that all organisms face.

Every summer since 1983, a member of the department leads a group of about 24 Carleton students in a program based at the University of Cambridge, the intellectual home of John Maynard Keynes and Alfred Marshall. Courses are taught by the program director and Professor Solomos Solomou, a member of the Cambridge economics faculty. Subject matter often includes the industrial revolution, the contemporary British economy and the history of economic thought. Though the seminar focuses on economics, it is open to all Carleton students. In addition to classroom study, students make a number of excursions to sites of cultural and economic interest. This includes a week-long trip to the north of England. During this trip, students see first hand a number of important artifacts from the industrial revolution. The program directorship rotates among members of the faculty.

Literature, theater, and the arts flourish in London. The city has a rich literary and cultural past and present and is arguably the pre-eminent world city for theater. The goal of the London program is to provide Carleton students an immersion experience in this rich milieu; to see and discuss a wide variety of the best performances on offer; and to make use of local museums and other sites to enrich their understanding of English literature and culture.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 represents a critical juncture in the long evolution of European political economic integration. The treaty transformed the institutions of the European Union (EU) and set its members on an accelerated pathway towards monetary integration. The Carleton College Political Science Seminar in Maastricht, The Netherlands provides students with an opportunity to research and reflect critically on the politics of European integration while they live and travel throughout Western and Southern Europe.

Immerse yourself in a world both sacred and secular, east and west, old and new, through an interdisciplinary program that combines literature, cultural studies, and religious studies. Students will converse with noted Israeli authors, meet religious and secular Israeli activists, explore Zionist history in old Tel Aviv, discover Judaism’s newest expressions in its holiest city, visit medieval mystics and modern artists in Safed, learn about the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli identity through the Holocaust museum (Yad Vashem), explore the ancient religious sites of Jerusalem, and visit a Dead Sea oasis.

This program is aimed at introducing students to the rich culture and history of Mali as well as its daily existence as one of the most economically challenged countries in the world. Located in the center of West Africa, Mali, (formerly called the French Soudan) is dotted with cities such as Segou, Timbuktou, Jenne, and Mopti, where the blending of Islam and Black African traditions in the Middle Ages and the rich tradition of cross-cultural exchange have created one of Africa’s most inviting and prepossessing cultures. A country of many ethnic groups--such as the Bambara, Malinke, Fula, Khassonke, Tuareg, Songhai, Dogon, and Senufo--modern Mali was shaped by the rich political and cultural legacy of the Empire of Mali (11th century to the 14th century), the prestige of which is celebrated to this day through a vibrant tradition of epic songs, narratives, and unique performance and plastic art forms.

Each spring the French department sponsors a seminar in Paris. Classes are held in the heart of the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank. Students stay with carefully selected French families and discover Paris while immersing themselves in French life and language. Some options for independent accommodations may be available. Each program includes a one to two week excursion to another location in France or the francophone world. For example, in 2007 the program moved to Fes, Morocco for 10 days and in 2008, students discovered Provence, a region in southern France.

New Zealand is an amazing place to study Geology. Plate tectonic processes are active and happening in real time. New Zealand also has a rich Gondwanan heritage. This program will travel throughout the North and South Islands, and visit a range of settings from mountains and glaciers, to terraced coastal plains and adjacent shoreline and shallow marine environments. We will stay and work out of rustic field stations and hostels. The academic program will largely be centered on directed learning modules and independent fieldwork; teamwork will be emphasized. Visits to cultural sites and interactions with New Zealand scientists will be important aspects of our studies.

The city of Berlin is one of the most fascinating places in Europe, both for its history and for its status as a cultural metropolis. With its important role in the Weimar Republic, its sites of political decisions and destruction during the last World War, and the fact that for over forty years it served as the symbol for Germany’s division, it is an excellent place for anyone who wants to become familiar with German and European history. Students will be asked to meet the requirements for the following courses, which meet on a MWTh schedule to accommodate occasional travel on the weekends. Successful completion of the German language course will satisfy the College language requirement. All courses, including the history course, count towards the German major and the Certificate of Advanced Study in German.

The culture shock of the Industrial Revolution in England sparked a favorable reappraisal of the Middle Ages, previously regarded as a bleak historical epoch. Starting in the late eighteenth century, Gothic Revivalists, skeptical of machine-age progress, sought to revitalize imagined qualities of medieval society, such as spirituality, craftsmanship, and communalism. This course will explore interpretations of medieval English culture by anti-modernists such as the Pre-Raphaelites, Arts & Crafts workers, and others.

The program will spend a week in Louisburgh, Co. Mayo on Ireland's West Coast, a month in Dublin, and a month in Belfast. Students will design an independent project using research, writing, and images to supplement the courses and display their knowledge of Irish literature and culture. Prerequisites include two Courses in English literature and English 249 (Irish Literature) is strongly suggested.

This program gives students the opportunity to study linguistics and experience Japanese culture with students at Doshisha University in Kyoto. It will also include excursions to Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kobe.

The fall course will focus in depth on political and historical patterns of Brazil’s economic, social, and cultural development from colonial times to its current democracy. The Brazil case study offers a wealth of lessons concerning the contradictions and possibilities of economic, social, and cultural development in the world today. We will explore these lessons through literature, music, architecture, and the arts as they speak to the perils of the country’s insertion into global capitalism and to its political history which reflects the difficulties of creating and deepening democracy and building centers of political authority in the context of growing social inequalities and industrialization. Research will be done on-site in Brazil over winter break.

How do cultures and communities construct, preserve, re-purpose, and destroy spaces and places to achieve new political, social, or religious aims or to press new ambitions and sensibilities? How do urban and rural landscapes and sites come to play vital roles in the realization of political or religious ideas? How do cities as complex agglomerations of people, places, and activities develop and by what historical forces are they shaped? How do historical legacies shape and enable yet also constrain a city’s present? Centered in Rome, a city with one of the richest historical pasts in Europe, this program will provide students with diverse opportunities to explore these broader questions through the close examination of texts, images, sites and landscapes produced during Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond. A central purpose of the courses in the program is to have students experience and explore the city and environs in depth and to learn how to investigate this experiential knowledge with academic sources of insight and information. Each course will therefore have a significant number of site visits inside and outside Rome as well as assignments that require independent exploration.

* Visit and training at Grameen Bank - the brainchild of Noble Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus * Travel to multiple rural development project sites run by one of the world's largest NGOs, BRAC * Get a first hand look at a myriad of scenes common to many developing countries including slums, garments and handicrafts industry, child labor, informal markets, densely populated cities with massive inequality, and agriculture based poor rural areas * Be introduced to the history, culture, cuisines, and social scene of Bangladesh which include trips to some local heritage sites * Attend lectures by experts in the fields of economic development, gender studies, rural development, and environmental studies

The seminar examines the ways in which artists are using and inventing new technological tools to make art, and consider how technology and our communication environment has become a vital subject of commentary and critique by artists and critics. Many of the projects we will visit are installation or locative works best understood when engaged experientially, sometimes hands-on. Along the way, we will meet with a wide range of curators and critics who will help clarify our thinking and challenge our assumptions. While the seminar will be responsive to the rich mix of projects and aesthetics on display, we will be particularly attuned to studying the contemporary aesthetic of “cut ‘n paste” or “remix” culture.

Washington D.C. is a wonderful location for many kinds of learning beyond the classroom. In addition to the major institutions of national government, the city is an international capital that is home to over 150 foreign embassies. This seminar allows students work experience three days a week in a Washington internship and provides over fifty class sessions with leading Waashington figures - legislators, administration officials, judges, lobbyists, American and foreign diplomats, and members of the American and international press.

All courses apply toward the Certificate of Advanced Study in Russian as well as the Russian major. The applicability of credit may differ for individual students depending on level and categories within the major and concentration to be fulfilled. You are advised to consult with the department. All students will register for 9 credits of language courses, which meet from six to nine periods per week and are taught by members of the Philological Faculty of Moscow State University. Students at all levels of Russian experience will also register for a spring break reading course prior to the seminar as well as for the “Russia East and West” course.

The program will be based in Peru's capital city. A city of 8,000,000, with extensive neighborhoods sprawling outside the traditional and business centers, Lima area has been the center of key cultural developments in the Americas since 5,000 years before the appearance of the Inca Empire, and later, together with Mexico, the center of Spanish dominion in colonial times. The program will also include two extended stays in the Northern coast (based in Trujillo) and Southern highlands (based in Cusco). Stays in Lima and in those areas (and shorter trips to other sites) will allow students to observe the differing sides and the contradictions and paradoxes of modernization in a "third-world" setting. The program's primary objective is to create conditions for the students to reflect on such reality and the cultural artifacts created by the peoples of Peru.

Through coursework and independent research, this program provides students with the opportunity to examine, from an anthropological perspective, issues of cultural continuity, resource management, and social change in Guatemala and Chiapas, as this region’s people attempt to come to terms with social inequality, human rights abuses, and sustainable development in an effort to build a multi-ethnic society.

Students will take classes at the Universidad de las Americas (UDLA), in Cholula, a city immediately adjacent to Puebla, the major city of the area. Cholula is the oldest city on the American continent, surrounded by the Popocatepetl and Ixtlaccihuatle volcanoes. In this city stands the great Pyramid of Chlula, considered to be the largest in volume in the world. A fantastic display of arts and crafts, ethnic music and food is part of the daily life of the various communities in the Cholula region. Puebla de los Angeles is situated in the center of Mexico. Its central location places Puebla only 70 miles (122 km) away from Mexico City, 165 miles (267 km) from Veracruz, and 198 miles (320 km) from Oaxaca. In addition to its traditional architecture and atmosphere, the city has a first-rate tourist infrastructure and is also a leader in commercial and educational facilities.

The goal of this program is to bring together studio art practice with the challenges and advantages of off-campus study – drawing from nature in a new environment, studying social issues in the context of a foreign setting, and producing narrative work in response to travel. Students will work both to improve their drawing skills and to see drawing as a unique way to understand the world. The work of the entire term, including both drawing and printmaking projects, will form a visual journal in which the students will record the experiences of travel abroad. Students will examine social and environmental issues, learn about indigenous and post-colonial art and artists, visit with artists, and interact with people along the way.

This course begins with a two-week visit in December to the La Selva Biological Station near Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. The station is located in lowland rainforest and has been the site of many important ecological experiments. While at La Selva, the class will perform extensive field experiments planned during Biology 361. In regular meetings during the term, data will be analyzed and presented in oral and written reports.

The IES Abroad Berlin Language & Area Studies Program draws upon Berlin's rich culture and tradition to connect coursework subjects with the living history of the city. The program offers IES Abroad courses taught in German by German faculty, as well as access to classes at a number of Berlin universities, including the renowned Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.