London Study Abroad: Literature, History, Drama, Architecture, Art and Archeology
2010 dates: July 10 - 29, 2010
ENGL 379O
ENGL 379O: Study Abroad in London and East Anglia in England is an intensive examination of British culture. Students on the program will study the History, Literature, Drama, Architecture, Art and Archeology of Britain by visiting London, Castle Acre (an East Anglian village in Norfolk), and a number of other historic and literary sites in England.
History
England is a layer cake of cultures, one atop another through time. With lectured visits to historic sites, the course will cover the standard periods of 6,000 years of occupation of this land: Prehistoric, Roman, Medieval, Early Modern, Victorian, and Contemporary. Site visits, in London and out-of-town, will be supplemented by peripatetic lectures at special-interest exhibits in such museums as the Museum of London, the British Museum, the V&A, the two Tates, Sir John Soane's Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. There will also be special behind-the-scenes visits to the Linnean Society, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and the Herbarium and the Joseph Banks Project at the Natural History Museum. Out-of-town visits will include Oxford, Canterbury, and Charles Darwin's Down House.
Literature
Students will learn the ambits of Keats in London, Dickens in London, and Shakespeare in London. Sites associated with Orwell, Orton, Lamb, Coleridge, Woolfe, Eliot, and many others will be visited. Visits include the British Library, the St. Brides Printing Library, and the National Portrait Gallery.
Drama
During the course, students will attend a great many plays at both the West End and Fringe theatres. All periods will be covered, from medieval and Shakespearean plays through contemporary British plays, including Stoppard and Pinter. Students will have a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Theatre, where the group will see several plays. The program will also attend a "platform" lecture by a playwright or director of a play currently on offer.
Architecture
London is essential for a study of baroque town-planning, the sort that Christopher Wren faced in 1666 when he set out to transform a medieval town into a baroque city. In addition to St. Paul's and Southwark Cathedrals and Westminster Abbey, the program will visit a great many 18th Century churches in town, including those by Wren, Hawksmoor, Gibbs, and Flitcroft. Contemporary architecture in the City (James Stirling and Norman Foster) as well as new developments in the Docklands and Greenwich will be studied. Modern infill within historic citiscapes will be another focus.
Art
London has some of the most important art collections in the world: The National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, and the Courtauld Institute will all be visited in depth.
Archaeology
The program will visit a number of London digs and will stay three days in Norfolk with Helen Paterson, an archaeologist and current field-monuments warden for the county. A feature of much present knowledge of prehistoric, Roman, and medieval London is that it comes not from academe but from museum-sponsored archaeology. The development will be considered vis-a-vis the archaeology of Shakespeare's Rose Theatre. Another interest of the course will be English acquisition and preservation of antiquities from abroad generally and from the Empire in particular. The Egyptian and Greek galleries at the B.M. and the Flinders Petrie Museum will be visited.
Castle Acre and Norwich, Norfolk
For three days, the group will leave London to stay in a 13th Century East Anglian village, with a surviving castle motte, priory, and 15th Century church and dovecote. In Norwich, students will also visit Elm Court, the site of medieval mystery and morality plays, the Castle Museum, and the Cathedral.