UG Opportunities Study Abroad
- Dublin
- Florence
- London
- Mexico City
- Stratford-upon-Avon
- UCEAP
“In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis”: A Guided Tour of Literary Dublin
For the second year in a row UCLA’s Department of English is thrilled to announce a one-week all-expenses paid literary tour of Dublin and environs!
The tour will consist of 6-7 students in total drawn from our undergraduate majors and graduate students, led by Colleen Jaurretche. Primed by reading appropriate excerpts of various Dublin authors, we’ll explore the city of Dublin and surroundings. As part of our journey, we will take note of Dublin’s structure and development from its earliest settlement through its urban rise in the eighteenth-century, subsequent descent into one of the greatest slums of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, and its resurgence as a major capital city of the world. Literary and cultural experts will join us along the way. In addition to visiting literary sites, our journeys will include major museums and cultural monuments of the city. Destinations will include the Book of Kells; the National Library; Glasnevin Cemetery; and the National Museum of Ireland’s Archaeology holdings. This tour includes three guided day-trips from Dublin: the first to Newgrange, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the largest and most beautifully preserved Neolithic tomb in Europe; and second, to the monastic site of Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains, source of the River Liffey. Our third tour will be to Co. Derry in Northern Ireland to visit the birthplace and home of Seamus Heaney. The day will include a visit to Seamus Heaney HomePlace, a museum dedicated to his work. Our final morning will be free for exploration of sites not otherwise included in the tour, such as the National Gallery, Phoenix Park, the Chester Beatty Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Irish Literature. Itineraries and schedule will be released once finalized. A course reader and other materials will be provided.
Proposed Timeline:
We will depart LAX on June 19th and arrive in Dublin on June 20th, with return to Los Angeles on June 28th. Students may arrive earlier or stay later if they wish to avail themselves of research or other travel in Dublin, or Ireland more generally. Stays beyond the framework of the escorted trip will be at the expense of the individual.
Travel and Accommodation
The Department of English will make flight arrangements for travel up to $1,500, and give each student meal and transfers stipends. Accommodation will be at Trinity College, in the center of the city, with a generous Irish breakfast to start the day. Students will be responsible for navigating their own transit between the airport and Trinity, and back again once the trip is over.
How to Apply
Please write a one-page explanation of why you would like to visit Dublin. Do not exceed 500 words. Email your submission to dublin@english.ucla.edu. Use the subject line HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS 2024.
Deadline to Apply
Thursday, February 15th!
English in Florence: American Writers and Artists Abroad
Not running in Summer 2022.
American writers and artists loved Florence (and Italy generally), and often went there to write, paint, and sculpt.
Travel and residence abroad was an essential part of their aesthetic education and creative development. Especially in the nineteenth century, the old world (and Italy in particular) served as the site of significant artistic education, exploration, and adventure.
This summer study program offers an opportunity to read American novels and short stories that were written in Italy, or that set their stories there or featured expatriate American writers and artists as charactersor all of the above.
This program examines the experiences of some of the most important American writers and artists who spent time in Florence, the beautiful Tuscan city where the Italian Renaissance originated. The program also includes an overnight excursion to Rome, the seat of the Roman Empire and a place of significance for Western civilization.
Program Director: Professor Christopher Looby, UCLA Department of English
Curriculum: 10-14 units
- English 119-Literary Cities (Florence) (5 units)
- English 177-Interdisciplinary Studies in American Culture (5 units)
- English 199-Individual Studies (optional 4 units)
For more information, visit http://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-Florence
London – City of Transformations
July 3 – July 23, 2022
Spend a few weeks living in London this summer, and get to know one of the world’s greatest cities as an insider, not just a tourist.
This is an opportunity to gain an intimate knowledge of London, discovering, walking and mapping the psychogeography of the contemporary capital while recovering the hidden traces of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—such as the churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor and the illuminated books of William Blake, which remain active nodes in the city’s cultural maps and provide major reference points in literature from T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland to the graphic novel From Hell.
The program combines the study of the cultural history of London with the study of the shifting patterns of urban design and development in the city, comparing the great nineteenth-century transformations of the capital (for example Trafalgar Square, Regents Street) with more contemporary developments (e.g., Canary Wharf and the Docklands; the purged and reinvented sites of the 2012 Olympics; Shoreditch and the east end).
The program aims to trace and re-trace the many recurring patterns of demolition and development that have shaped London for two centuries, and an unfolding Romantic contestation of those changes that have persisted into the present.
Program enrollment is limited to maintain an intimate environment for discussion in the classroom and on the street.
Program Director: Professor Saree Makdisi, UCLA Department of English
Curriculum: 10-14 units
- English 169-Topics in Literature, circa 1700 to 1850: Romanticism and Revolution (5 units)
- English 182D/184-Topics in Romantic Literature/Capstone Seminar (5 units)*
- English 199-Individual Studies (optional 4 units)
*English majors who will have completed 4 upper-division English courses by the end of spring term will be registered in English 184 for capstone credit; all other students will be registered in 182D.
For more information, visit http://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-London
Mexico City: An American Crossroad
Not running in Summer 2022.
This program brings several courses together in a unique, inter-departmental opportunity to learn the history of US-Mexico relations, build language skills, and satisfy both major and general education requirements.
During our time together, we will read about and explore Mexico City as a primary catalyst of both contemporary chicanidad and transnational conceptions of “America.” These courses will deepen your understanding of what it means to study culture, of the historical and geopolitical stakes of valuing certain forms of expression over others. You will learn to reflect on your critical practice and to think about how your own definition of “America” is informed by living in the United States. This program is an excellent foundation for further study of American (broadly defined) literature and culture and an ideal foundation for students considering careers with an international, American focus.
Program Director: Professor Marissa López, UCLA Department of English
Curriculum: total units will vary based on course selection
You have significant flexibility to pick and choose courses, building a program that best meets your needs, with the only requirement being that you must take at least one English course. You may also enroll in an additional 4 units of 197 (Individual Studies) or 199 (Directed Research).
English courses:
- English 11-Introduction to American Cultures (5 units)
- English M105A-Early Chicana/Chicano Literature (5 units)
- English 199-Individual Studies (optional 4 units)
Spanish courses:
- Spanish 2A/3A-Intensive Spanish (4 units)
- Spanish 7A-Introductory Spanish for Heritage Speakers (4 units)
- English 7B-Intermediate Spanish for Heritage Speakers (4 units)
For more information, visit: https://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/english-mexicocity/
Shakespeare (Stratford-upon-Avon and London)
Not running in Summer 2022.
Experience Shakespeare’s plays as they were meant to be experienced, on the stage as well as the page, and in the company of his fellow dramatists, during a summer session spent in Stratford-upon-Avon and London, England.
During this intensive program, students will be immersed in the study of multiple plays in performance, as mounted both on the two stages of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the reconstructed Globe Theater in Southwark, London.
Classroom work will include analysis of literary and historical approaches to the plays led by UCLA Shakespearean Professor Claire McEachern, as well as visits from actors, directors and other production staff of these two world-famous theater companies. Beyond the classroom, students will be introduced to the major historical sites and museums of Shakespeare’s hometown as well as the cultural offerings of London.
Program Director: Professor Claire McEachern, UCLA Department of English
Curriculum: 10-14 units
For English Majors
- English 150A-Shakespeare: Poems and Early Plays (5 units)
- English 150B-Shakespeare: Later Plays (5 units)
- English 199: Individual Studies (optional 4 units)
Students who have already taken English 150A or 150B may substitute English 150C-Shakespeare:
Special Topics for that course.
For non-English Majors
- English 90-Shakespeare (5 units) may fulfill GE requirement
- English 129-Topics in Genre Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Critical Theory (5 units)
- English 199: Individual Studies (optional 4 units)
For more information, visit: http://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-Stratford
Additionally, the UCEAP (University of California Education Abroad Program) is partnered with 115 universities worldwide and offers programs in 42 countries; and the UCLA Career Center offers individual and group advising to students on a wide array of international opportunities.