Travel Courses

Each year the UHP offers a number of special “travel” courses that transport professor and students to the areas studied in the classroom over the semester.  Past course trips have studied Medieval Spanish Religion in Toledo and Madrid; the Italian Renaissance in Venice and Florence; the Supreme Court by traveling to Washington, D.C.; Slavery in Colonial Virginia; the contemporary art scene through a trip to New York City’s museums and galleries; Roman Emperors and French Monarchies in Rome and Paris; and Inca art and culture in Peru.

New Honors travel courses will be listed at the release of the Honors Spring 2019 course list. Stay tuned to see where Honors students will be traveling next!

JAN-TERM & SUMMER 2019:

Travel Honors Courses:

Spring 2019:

(KNW) HIST 3317: Persecution to Affirmation: Sexual Minorities and Human Rights taught by:
Professors David D. Doyle, Jr., & Marie-Luise Gaettens

Boaz Commons 136– TuTh 2:00 – 3:20PM
Travel to Berlin, Germany during Spring Break!

Twelve Honors students will travel and conduct research for the course in Berlin, Germany over Spring Break. The focus of this class will be issues of gender and sexuality across time and place. Readings in the European section will focus on Germany—with specific attention to differences between the 1920s and the 1930s and 1940s. Over Spring Break, the class will remain for the most part in Berlin—studying and touring the city, past and present controversies and issues surrounding gender and sexuality, and meeting with people from other parts of the globe who have arrived in Western Europe as refugees.

The progression of course will begin with readings on the modern human rights movement and its basic components. We then will move to a series of comparative readings that examine how sexuality and sexual orientation and gender “slippage” have been understood in different parts of the world over time and continue to be today. These ‘case studies,’ while necessarily limited in scope, will begin to illustrate for the student just how differently those with same sex attractions or gender bending have been understood—and treated—across time and place. In an effort to illustrate people’s real agency in the face of adversity, cruelty, and discrimination the readings will not focus entirely on oppression, but will also detail how the human spirit manages to innovate and adapt.

(KNW) MDVL 3351: The Pilgrimage: Imagining Medieval Cultures taught by:
Professors Bonnie Wheeler, Stephanie Amsel, Shira Lander, Denise du Pont, & Catherine Keene

McCord Auditorium, Dallas Hall 306– TuTh 11:00AM – 12:20PM
Travel to Jerusalem during Spring Break!

This course will examine the sites, objects, routes, and theoretical principles surrounding the act of medieval pilgrimage. Centered around the city of Jerusalem, we will discuss how pilgrimage functioned within the faiths of the three major Abrahamic religious—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both a physical and spiritual act, pilgrimage served as a mode of belief that fused past and present, allegory with reality. As we consider the paradigm constructed by these acts, students will engage with an interdisciplinary array of texts (both literary and historical) and images in their own imitation of the pilgrim’s way.

PLSC 4332: Supreme Court Seminar taught by Professor Joseph Kobylka

Florence Hall 306 – WF 2:00 – 3:20PM
Travel to Washington D.C. during Spring Break!

Examines the development of constitutional law and the dynamics of decision making on the Supreme Court, from the perspectives of political science and history, built around a week of research in the Library of Congress

J-Term/Spring/Summer 2018:

ASAG 3350: New York Colloquium taught by Professor Phillip Van Keuren

J-Term: Sunday, December 31st, 2017 (arrival) through Sunday, January 14th, 2018 (departure)

This course involves intensive analysis, discussion, and writing concerning works of art in museum collections and exhibitions, and in alternative exhibition spaces. Students will study the philosophical as well as the practical to define and understand the nature of the art that society produces and values. The colloquium meets in New York City for 2 weeks in January.

RELI 3348: Temples, Churches, and Synagogues in the Ancient Mediterranean taught by:
Professors Danielle Joyner and Shira Lander

Annette Simmons Hall 221 – TuTh 11:00 – 12:20 PM
Travel to Toledo and Madrid over Spring Break: March 9-18, 2018

This course explores the forms, politics, and social functions of sacred spaces in the ancient Mediterranean using contemporary theories of spatiality. Students learn how to analyze archaeological and literary remains.

SMU in Rome-Paris Study Abroad: Rome of the Emperors, Paris of the King
HIST 3361: Roman History and the Roman Mind taught by Professor Melissa Dowling
HIST 3335: One King, One Law taught by Professor Kathleen Wellman

Summer 2018: Thursday, May 17th, 2018 (arrival) through Sunday, June 10, 2018 (departure)

Friends, Romans, countrymen. We will stand where Marc Antony delivered his eulogy for Julius Caesar and march where gladiators soaked in the roar of the Roman audience. In Rome, we will learn about the ancient city and its many peoples, many religions, many innovations in engineering and architecture, and its importance for the rest of world history.

In Paris, we will climb up to the gargoyles of Notre Dame, admire the unicorn tapestries, and stroll in the golden halls and gardens of the sun king, Louis XIV, at Versailles. From the cathedral of St. Denis to the Louvre museum, the city will be our classroom as we exam how this great capital became preeminent in art, literature, politics and history until the French Revolution.

Spring 2017:

ASAG 3350: New York Colloquium taught by Professor Phillip Van Keuren

J-Term: Sunday, January 1st, 2017 (arrival) through Sunday, January 15th, 2017 (departure)

This course involves intensive analysis, discussion, and writing concerning works of art in museum collections and exhibitions, and in alternative exhibition spaces. Students will study the philosophical as well as the practical to define and understand the nature of the art that society produces and values. The colloquium meets in New York City for 2 weeks in January.

Spring 2016:

ASAG 3350: New York Colloquium taught by Professor Phillip Van Keuren

J-Term: Sunday, January 3rd, 2016 (arrival) through Sunday, January 17th, 2016 (departure)

This course involves intensive analysis, discussion, and writing concerning works of art in museum collections and exhibitions, and in alternative exhibition spaces. Students will study the philosophical as well as the practical to define and understand the nature of the art that society produces and values. The colloquium meets in New York City for 2 weeks in January.

HIST/HRTS 3317: Persecution to Affirmation: Sexual Minorities and Human Rights taught by:
Professors Dr. Doyle and Maxime Foerster

Shuttles Hall 315 – TuTh 2:00 – 3:20 PM
Travel to Amsterdam during Spring Break, 6 - 13 May

15 honor students will travel and conduct research as Richter Fellows in Amsterdam, Netherlands over the spring break. The focus of this class will be issues of gender and sexuality across time and place. Over the spring break the class will remain for the most part in Amsterdam—studying and touring the city, past and present controversies and issues surrounding gender and sexuality, and meeting with people from other parts of the globe who have arrived in Amsterdam as refugees.

The progression of course will begin with readings on the modern human rights movement and its basic components. We will then move to a series of comparative readings that examine how sexuality and sexual orientation and gender “slippage” have been understood in different parts of the world over time and continue to be today. These ‘case studies’, while necessarily limited in scope, will begin to illustrate for the student just how differently those with same sex attractions or gender bending have been understood—and treated—across time and place. In an effort to illustrate people’s real agency in the face of adversity, cruelty, and discrimination, thereadings will not focus entirely on oppression, but will also detail how the human spirit manages to innovate and adapt.

Spring 2015:

ASAG 3350: New York Colloquium taught by Professor Phillip Van Keuren

J-Term: Sunday, January 4th, 2015 (arrival) through Sunday, January 18th, 2015 (departure)

This course involves intensive analysis, discussion, and writing concerning works of art in museum collections and exhibitions, and in alternative exhibition spaces. Students will study the philosophical as well as the practical to define and understand the nature of the art that society produces and values. The colloquium meets in New York City for 2 weeks in January.

ARHS 3382: Art and Experience in Inka Peru taught by Professor Adam Herring

Owen Fine Arts Center 1635 – Monday 2:00 – 4:50PM
Travel to Peru at the end of the semester, 1 – 9 May

Twelve students will have the opportunity to participate in a UHP 3000-level seminar on the history and aesthetics of Inka Peru with Professor Adam Herring of SMU Art History. After spending a semester studying the art, culture, and history of the Inka tradition of South America, the students will then travel to Peru to experience Inka art and architecture first-hand. Students will visit Inka sites in and around the old Inka capital of Cusco, Peru, culminating in an extended visit to Machu Picchu

PLSC 3330: Law, Politics, and the Supreme Court taught by Professor Joseph Kobylka

Hyer Hall 200 – MWF 11:00 – 11:50AM
Travel to Washington D.C. during Spring Break!

An introduction to the uniquely political and legal role played by the Supreme Court in elaborating the scope of governmental power and defining individual rights and liberties. The course will require a major research project partially based on Supreme Court Justice papers.