2006 Intensive Study Abroad at the Paris Research Center
May Intersession

This year students campus-wide will benefit from unique opportunities for week-long intensive study abroad. These innovative programs for intensive study abroad in Paris were expressly created to provide in-depth on-site international experiences. They include: 7 activity-rich days in Paris with meetings at the Paris Research Center, classes given on-site at the cultural, historical and political institutions you are studying, 6 nights in hotels, numerous group meals, site visits, cultural activities and UF credit.

May Intersession Programs

Download the 2006 Academic advisement sheet

May Intersession One Week Programs

• Seeing the Other: French Representations of Non-Western Cultures
  HUM 4956/WST 3930, 2 credits
  May 7-13, 2006
  Co-taught by Dr. Florence Babb & Dr. Victoria Rovine
  
  This course will explore the long history and contemporary context of French museums and other public institutions in the representation of non-Western cultures. We will focus on the representation of African cultures, which are particularly prominent in Paris, though we will also address the presence of Latin American arts and cultures in French museums and other public venues. In addition to visiting museums and galleries where African and other non-Western art is displayed, we will explore the contemporary African cultures of Paris, visiting neighborhoods with high concentrations of African residents in order to gain insight into the relationship between the “official” representation of Africa through museums and the lived cultures of Africans in Paris today.
  
  The co-instructors of this course are faculty members Victoria Rovine, a specialist in African art history, and Florence Babb, an anthropologist specializing in Latin America. Both are interested in the ways that art and ethnography figure in the social construction of race, class, gender, and cultural identity. They have collaborated in research and teaching on material culture, travel, and national identity in the present period of globalization.

May Intersession Two Week Programs

• The Architecture of Paris: experiments of place
  Course number ARC 3291; 3 credits
  May 7-20, 2006
  Dr. Nancy Clark
  
  Paris is a uniquely layered landscape of historical and modern architectural monuments. Historic structures include the Louvre Palace, the Viaduct Daumesnil, the Eiffel Tower, and Labrouste’s Bibliotheque Nationale. The late 20th century has added the modern grands projets including Parc and Cite des Sciences at La Villette, the Institute du Monde Arabe, the Bibliotheque de France, and the new design proposals for Les Halles as well as lesser known but equally important projects that have emerged out of PAN (new architecture programme), a critical component to understanding the modern fabric of the city. This course will examine the architecture of the city of Paris as a layered artifact, constructed out of the collective social, political and economic influences embedded in its history, with a specific emphasis on Paris’ modern city image. Students will participate in several guided tours of the city and building interiors; meet with prominent Parisian architects who will discuss their work and ideas about the city; and take part in daily discussion sessions. Course participants will be responsible for keeping a journal in which they will study and record Paris based on their own city theme.
• A Writer's Tour of Paris for the Five Senses
  IDH 3931, 2 credits
  May 7-20, 2006
  Professor Vikram Rangala
  
  Travel sharpens the senses and travelers note details large and small which they would pass over at home. Writers attend with similar ardor to the details that matter to the stories they wish to tell. This course will use this heightened sensory awareness to help student-travelers, with notebook and pen always at the ready, to note the details which they alone are fit to record. We will write, speak, and amuse ourselves in and around Paris seeking stimulation and over-stimulation to one sense at a time. And we will consider how great writers, mainly American and French, have written about such stimulation. Likely locations include several musées and jardins, the gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny, a jazz club, a parfumerie, a marché (which we will browse on empty stomachs if possible) and Montmartre. You will learn and practice fundamental writing principles which apply across genres. At the end you will write an essay on what you took in.
• Two Week Tour of Historic & Contemporary Landscape Architecture in Paris
  LAA 4956, 3 credits
  May 7-20, 2006
  Professor R. Terry Schnadelbach
  
  A two week tour of exemplary landscape architectural spaces that focuses on examples of gardens, parks and urban open spaces in Paris and the nearby region. Program includes: 14 activity-rich days in Paris with classes given on-site at the cultural, historical and political institutions you are studying, 13 nights in hotel with breakfast, numerous group meals, site visits, cultural activities, UF credit, and more!

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