Travel Courses (TRAVL-UG)

From the arrival of the Umayyids in 711 until the fall of the Emirate of Granada in 1492, Muslims created a vibrant and cosmopolitan civilization in Spain where arts, philosophy, science, and different communities of faith flourished. Al-Andalus emerged as a hub of cultural and intellectual exchange amongst Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The renowned Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd, who wrote extensive commentaries of Aristotle, was born in Cordoba. So did Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar. Ibn Rushd and Maimonedes joined a long list of philosophers, physicians, astronomers who contributed richly to the expansion of knowledge during Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. " Europe"s relationship with Islam remains problematic as it often involves cultural essentialism and "othering." The arrival of increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants and refugees in Europe in recent decades has reinforced the negative perception of Islam. Islamic Spain offers useful and necessary historical context to explore the deep, productive, meaningful, and less antagonistic exchanges between Europe and Islam. Studying the Islamic past of the Iberian Peninsula will allow us to develop useful insights regarding a complex, multilingual, polyethnic, and pluralistic society. By situating Al-Andalus as a part of the European experience, we will move away from the Eurocentric and exclusivist notions of historiography that stress the Reconquista as a point of inflection. Instead, we will recover the dynamic society that existed before then. Islamic Spain defies Orientalist notions of Islam through its accommodation of diverse theological positions and pluralistic philosophies rooted within the Islamic tradition.

THIS COURSE TAKES PLACE AT N.Y.U. BERLIN. Application: http://gallatin.nyu.edu/utilities/forms/summersaapp.html   For more information: https://gallatin.nyu.edu/academics/global/travelcourses/berlin.html   Description: Some of the most thrilling, momentous, and terrible events of the 1900s occurred in Berlin, which present tales of warning and inspiration to the present century. This four-week interdisciplinary seminar tracks these major events and traces change through the study of primary materials (literature, film, art, buildings, music, political discourse) and secondary readings drawn from a range of disciplines including history, sociology, philosophy, and critical theory. Berlin's streets, buildings, memorials, and cultural monuments offer cautionary tales about the folly of nationalist ambition; inspiring sagas of intellectual and physical courage; cold testimonials of crime and retribution; lyrical ballads of brutal honesty; personal records of hope and despair. From one perspective, all of these narratives are episodes in an epic whose grand and central scene is World War II; this is the point of view to be adopted in this course. Students will take in many of the sights and sounds of old and contemporary Berlin but will focus on the involvement of twentieth-century, Berlin-based politicians, activists, artists, architects, bohemians, writers, and intellectuals with the causes, experience, and consequences of World War II. Our period of study begins just before the outbreak of World War I and ends during the astonishing building boom of the post-Wall 1990s and early 2000s.

This course explores the longstanding and complex relationship between the Irish and African diasporas as a means of engaging broader themes of ethnoracial groupmaking, post/coloniality, and inequality in multicultural democracies.  People of Irish and African descent have lived in close proximity for four centuries-- a result of transatlantic migration, forced and otherwise. Relations between the two groups have been marked by both conflict and collaboration, shaped by prevailing conceptions of identity, hierarchies of belonging, and access to pathways of upward mobility in “new” world societies. In the last two decades, however, Ireland has become the site of that encounter. A booming “Celtic Tiger” economy of the 1990s has transformed an emigrant society into an immigrant one, as migrants from around the world have relocated there. As a growing population of Irish citizens of African descent has come of age, the country is grappling with new questions about what it means to be Irish, be it by way of birth, passport, immigration, ancestry, or culture—in Ireland now. Given these changes, Ireland is an ideal site to engage some of the most pressing questions of our time: What is required to create a multicultural democracy? How can belonging that doesn’t depend on sameness be made real? What counts as “same” and “different”? How do societies manage the ordeal of integration?  The course takes place mainly in Dublin with short trips to the west of Ireland and Belfast. Site visits may include the EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, Frederick Douglass Walking Tour and the Ulster Museum, among others.

he title of last year's version of the course was Pozzouli: Theater of the Earth, but the course has been modified and is now based in Naples (the course was cancelled last year for safety reasons due to an earthquake in the region). There are six students currently enrolled, but they are aware that the course is based in nearby Naples (it will still visit Pozzouli) since the course is application-only, and the application referred to the new course title. Please let me know if you have any questions.