MJD 363 - Study Abroad Re-entry

This interdisciplinary course is specifically designed for students who are returning from study abroad and are looking for ways to integrate their international experiences back into their “home” cultures and into the academic environment. Throughout this class, we will be using travel writing and the travel essay as the vehicles for exploring the possibilities and problems of cross-cultural communication and interaction. Students will be reading provocative examples of travel literature and research on cross-cultural issues and will be writing their own travel pieces. Together, we will be engaging with ideas from communication and media studies, anthropology, sociology, and psychology in order to better understand human behavior and identity within and across cultures. Along the way, we’ll be exploring related topics: the connection between language and identity; the connection between travel and identity; wealth, power, and poverty; the phenomenon of culture shock–and reverse culture shock; being a “minority” in another culture; developing a sense of “home”; the differences between the tourist and the traveler; the role of nonverbal communication in culture; encountering the other; the unwritten roles and rules of social behavior; and the “generalized other” of the global citizen.

Prerequisites: Students must have studied abroad.

Full course
Liberal Studies Curriculum: Global Issues that Impact the Common Good