Past Seminars
See where courses and students have gone before.
Summer 2024
Polarization & Peace: Lessons from Northern Ireland for a Divided World
This course offered a thoughtful exploration into post-conflict societies’ paths to reconciliation by delving into Northern Ireland’s peace education initiatives as a case study, while also gaining insights from various global examples.
Documenting Trauma in Ireland: the Troubles
In this course students explored the critical global issue of ethno-political conflict and its impact on the individual and the community, specifically using the Irish conflict of The Troubles as a framing device.
Throughout the course students will critically analyze The Troubles conflict and its impact on Ireland and its people, documenting it through the lens of their own perspective as well as the lens of a camera.
Summer 2023
Puerto Rico: United States Empire from the Margins
The twelve students in this Global Experience Seminar examined histories and literatures from and about the U.S. territories beyond the 50 states, with a particular focus on Puerto Rico in the 20th and 21st centuries. They were led by Beloit College Media Studies and English professor Michael Dango and Global Experience Office Associate Director/Instructor of Modern Languages Julianne Angeli’12.
While on the island, students met Juan Dalmau, former presidential candidate for the Puerto Rican independence Party, and learned from professors and community activists advocating for and celebrating the rich cultural identity of Puerto Rico. While living at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, they considered the legacies of colonization and efforts by writers to decolonize both lands and literatures.
Diego Boyd-Lassalle’25 reflects on his experiences during the Puerto Rico seminar
Italy: Ghosts of Rome
Rome is a city of ghosts, and the twelve students in this Global Experience Seminar were engaged in an imaginative approach to this both ancient and modern city. After an intensive week planning and preparing for on-site study, students spent ten days exploring the city, keeping in mind the ways its pasts both sustain and haunt it.
Led by professor of Greek, Latin and Ancient Mediterranean Studies Lisl Walsh and Director of Career Works Jessica Fox-Wilson’98, this program challenged students to consider how their own experiences (of history, urban spaces, culture, and even college itself) inevitably change the landscape of their investigation.
Germany & Poland: At Memory’s Edge
This seminar was an investigation of various monuments and museums in Berlin, Germany and Krakow, Poland that commemorate the atrocity of the Holocaust. These public commemorations serve as compelling examples of a nation’s attempt to acknowledge the profound failures of their past and work through them to imagine a less violent future. Students considered the motivation for commemorating past atrocities and how memorials can pose questions that are sometimes more important than answers when fashioning a different, more just future, and coming to terms with national and cultural failures. The seminar was led by Beloit College’s president Eric Boynton, GEO director Josh Moore and GEO assistant director Kathy Landon.
Summer 2022
Spain: Citizenship, Migration & Identity in Spain
The fifteen students in this Global Experience Seminar deepened their knowledge and connection to the issues of international migration, immigrant justice, and identity and power in a pluralistic society. They were led by Beloit College’s professors of Spanish Languages and Literatures Amy Tibbitts and Gabriela Cerghedean.
Staying with host families in Granada and taking excursions to Córdoba and Sevilla, the students explored the overlapping cultural identities of this region and people in historic and contemporary perspective.
Read sophomore Ojaswi Dhakal’s experiences during this Spain seminar
