Summer Study in Germany -- Botany, Society & the Revolution in Taste

SUMMER STUDY IN GERMANY

(no knowledge of German required)

Botany, Society & the Revolution in Taste

Study abroad in Germany for 4 weeks (June 2 – 27, 2014):
•    Learn about the history of botany and its impact on medicine, horticulture, politics, and economics in Western Europe
•    Examine the botanic imagination of 18th & 19th century writers whose works transformed how we think about and act in relation to nature
•    Travel to Berlin, Weimar, and Düsseldorf to visit botanic gardens and explore Goethe’s world
•    Stay at a monastery “Nikolauskloster” and study at the historic castle “Schloss Dyck” and its famous landscape garden near Düsseldorf
•    Earn 6 UNM credits in 2 linked courses:  ENGL/COMP 330 and BIOL 402/502

Estimated program cost: $2,600-2,900 plus airfare, GEO application fee, insurance, and UNM summer tuition.  Summer scholarships available (Regents’ International Travel Grants, ISI Summer Scholarships).

For more information, and complete syllabi for all classes, visit the Wiki site
http://unmgermansummer2014.pbworks.com/ 
and/or contact:
•    Prof. Gary Harrison, English Department, garyh@unm.edu
•    Prof. Tim Lowrey, Biology Department, tlowrey@unm.edu
•    Prof. Christine Sauer, Associate ISI Director, sauer@unm.edu
•    Jazmin Knight, ISI Operations Specialist, jkknight@unm.edu

Course Description
ENGL 330/556, COMP 330: The Botanic Imagination: Goethe, Rousseau, Charlotte Smith (3 credits, cross-listed as INTS 410 and ARTH 429)
Taught by Gary Harrison, Professor of English & Presidential Teaching Fellow, garyh@unm.edu

This first course in the Schloss Dyck program will examine the “botanical imagination” in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker, and Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head and Other Poems.  Examining the changing perspectives on landscape, gardens, and human sensibility in these three works, we will also discuss the way that the burgeoning discourse of botany in part shapes the literary and cultural imagination of these writers whose work marks a major transformation in the ways we think about and act in relationship to nature.  To that end, we will also read excerpts from a few important works on the aesthetics— of the sublime, the beautiful and the picturesque —by such writers as Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, and William Gilpin; as well as selected readings from a few recent scholarly articles on botany and romantic (and pre-romantic) literature.  Taking advantage of the park and gardens at Schloss Dyck, you will be encouraged to keep a “walking journal” to reflect upon your own experiences in the gardens and landscapes you encounter in your travels, as well as to write a critical and comparative analysis of the works we read during the program.  We will take field trips to the Goethe Museum at Schloss Jägerhoff and the Heinrich Heine Institute and Museum in Düsseldorf.  On a multi-day field trip to Weimar, we will visit the Goethe National Museum and tour Goethe’s cottage and gardens at Ilm Park; the palace at Weimar, which Duke Carl August redesigned in a neo-classical style under the guidance of Goethe; and Goethe’s residence on Frauenplan.

Requirements:  One six-page paper, a “walking journal,” and one 15-20 minute presentation.