Study In London!
In the Winter term of 2010, the University of Oregon English Department will inaugurate an annual term of study in London. This is your chance to encounter the cultural capital of our discipline and to connect your study of British literature and culture with the actual sights, sounds, people, and living history of England. The London winter term runs for 11 weeks, from January 10 through March 27, 2010. There is a one week mid-term break, during which most students travel in Europe and Great Britain.
UO English Majors have some added incentives to study in London:
- Fulfill FOUR English major requirements while taking any THREE courses in English literature, history, art history, or theatre.
- Apply for a London Winter Scholarship! In addition to other Study Abroad support, three scholarships of $1000, and five to ten scholarships of $500-$1000 will be available to students enrolling in the London program in Winter 2010. Students receiving Pell Grants are also eligible for a Gilman International scholarship of up to $5000. For further information, come to the London informational meeting on October 7th at noon in the Mills International Center in the EMU or contact Professor Mark Quigley at mquigley@uoregon.edu.
- Download Scholarship information and Applications here!
Scholarship Information Sheet
Tims-Ellis Scholarship Application
"An English Winter Scholarship" Application
UO Study Abroad Scholarship Application
In addition to being one of the most dynamic and exciting cities on the planet, London is one of the most expensive! Nevertheless, the British pound is currently at a 25-year low against the U.S. dollar. Moreover, fees for the London Program ($12,650 for Winter 2010) cover a wide range of services and activities, including:
- Tuition
- Excursions within London and beyond
- Theater and exhibition tickets
- Books and course materials
- Homestay
- Breakfast each day
- Dinner four nights a week
- Two loads of laundry per week
- Local transportation pass
- Medical insurance
- International Student Identity Card
- Associate membership of the International Students House
- Associate membership in the University of London Union (upon request)
- On-site orientation
- Expert support, pre-departure and on-site
Winter is an especially appealing season in London. Here is some of what you can expect:
- Experience the Secret London, the one ignored by tourists and loved by natives—the winter city, when visitors can find the best theater, uncrowded museums, and (sometimes) a city glistening in snow and ice.
- Discover the still accessible world of Victorian London in art and literature on guided tours of a nineteenth-century city still hiding in the shadows of the present one.
- Explore the revolutionary transformations in literature and painting behind conceptions of the natural world that still frame our responses to ‘real’ landscapes.
- Visit some of the central sites of British cultural history, inside and outside London.
- Jet away for long weekends (courtesy of cheap flights on Ryanair and others) to exciting locales across Europe.
- Encounter the vibrant, multicultural world of 21st-century London—its music, its foods, its neighborhoods, its new ideas.
In addition to course offerings in theater, history, and culture, the London 2010 program will offer two courses by the English Department's Professor Richard Stein (see course descriptions below). The program is open to all UO students, and students from other universities are also encouraged to apply. A full description of the London curriculum, program expenses, housing arrangements, and application procedures can be found here. UO English Majors are invited to contact the Department's London coordinator, Professor Mark Quigley (mquigley@uoregon.edu), to inquire about scholarship assistance. Advising for the London program and other UO study abroad programs is available through Study Abroad Programs at (541) 346-3207 or http://studyabroad.uoregon.edu.
WINTER 2010 COURSE LISTINGS
The program offers a choice of upper-division courses on British literature, history, and culture, all of which combine classroom discussion with regular excursions to points of interest in and around London. The Winter 2010 curriculum includes the following:
The Victorian City (expanded description below)
(Professor Stein—40 contact hours)
Discover modern London as a city living side-by-side with its historic forebears—the Londons of Shakespeare, Johnson, and Dickens, among others. Map ‘our' London alongside that earlier London and experience one of the most compelling cityspaces in the world.
Reinventing Nature: Texts, Arts, Spaces (expanded description below)
(Professor Stein—40 contact hours)
Experience various "inventions" of nature in England from the time of the French Revolution to just after the first World War in the context of their relationship to London's changing urban identity. Visit museums, parks and gardens from Kew in the West to Greenwich in the East.
London Theater
(Resident faculty—40 contact hours)
Attend at least six productions on the London stage—the world’s most renowned. Examine key elements in the development of the British and European theater tradition. Tour theaters and gain first-hand experience from invited practitioners and guest speakers.
Victorian Art and Architecture
(Resident faculty—40 contact hours)
The reign of Queen Victoria spanned a period of industrial growth, leading to dynamic urban expansion and social change, reflected in the art and architecture of the period. Explore Victorian painting, design, and architecture set in its historical background and stylistic context through museum visits and tours of the city.
Tudor England
(Resident faculty—40 contact hours)
Throughout the sixteenth century, developments in English politics, government, and society at large transformed the country from the medieval to a more modern world. Dissect the political and social background of Tudor England: people, religion, power, and metropolitan life. Trace the tumultuous reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary; the gradual consolidation in the reign of Elizabeth; and the transition from the Tudors to the Stuarts
Expanded Course Descriptions:
The Victorian City (ENG 451) Prof. Stein
An Overview: Modern London lives side-by-side with its historic forebears, the Londons of Shakespeare, Johnson, and Dickens, among others. In this course, we will get to know one of these-a Victorian world that still can be found in the streets and buildings, habits and legends of the contemporary city. This will, of course, mean reading: Dickens and some other 19th-century "urban" novelists, such classic Victorian urban fiction as the Sherlock Holmes stories, along with selections from nineteenth-century journalists and social investigators who were trying to record and explain the unprecedented phenomena of "modern" city life. It also will mean first-hand exploration: visits to some of the locations' boulevards, riversides, inner cities, public buildings, suburbs and even rural escapes-around which Dickens and others defined the mental geography by which London and other modern cities are still understood today. We will map "our" London alongside that earlier London, looking for points of convergence and departure, and use our readings in Victorian writers to help make sense of our encounters with what remains one of the most compelling cityspaces in the world.
Readings Include:
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
Henry Mayhew, London Labour & the London Poor
Blanchard Jerrold & Gustave Dore: London: A Pilgrimage
Amy Levy, Reuben Sachs
A.C. Doyle, Selected Sherlock Holmes Stories
Jack London, The People of the Abyss
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
(Re)Inventing Nature: Texts, Arts, Spaces (ENG 399) Prof. Stein
A Quick Sketch: The city is always in dialogue with the country. Londoners perpetually look over their shoulders towards that other, natural world--the "not-city" that lies just beyond the edges--or, sometimes, in the carefully-tended corners-of the dense urban grid. They are looking for nature--or else, looking to invent it--an 'other place' or alternate space that can remind them what the city is (and is not). In this course we will explore various "inventions" of nature in England from about the time of the French Revolution (1789) to just after the first World War (around 1920), thinking particularly about their relation to London's changing urban identity. Our starting point (naturally!) will be literature, beginning with the distinctive rural poetry of the British Romantic movement: Wordsworth and Company. But we will move beyond words to follow Romantic naturalism into painting, architecture, and the decorative arts, with emphasis on the work of Constable, Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites. This shift in focus will bring us to London museums and allow us to examine the museum itself as an institution created to accommodate the civilized yearning for natural roots. And then there is space, place, material nature face to face! We will travel outside London to sites where major Romantic painters worked, and visit some of the London parks and gardens (from Kew in the West to Greenwich in the East) where the dialogue of city and country was and still is brought to life. American students take note: this is not the Rocky Mountains! We will learn to recognize the marks of difference, and the reasons why.
Readings Include:
Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge
The Pre-Raphaelites
William Morris, News from Nowhere
Richard Jeffries, After London
Oscar Wilde
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
