Questions? Email Prof. Wilson about the trip!

This course leads students to direct encounters with the cultural history of Central Europe through travel to Berlin and Vienna, two of its main historical centers, and to Prague, a third vital city in its past. Emphasis will be on extending classroom knowledge through on-site discovery of the geography, urban organization, transportation networks, commerce, and daily life of the area, as well as on discovering ways the past is preserved there, including architecture, museums (e.g., art, historical, etc.), palaces, other architecture (e.g., churches, houses, public buildings, gardens), monuments and memorials, and concentration camps. This study trip may be taken as either GER 310 (in English and German) or as a 200-level HUM course (in English). GER 210 or placement is required to take GER 210, but you may take the 200-level HUM course without any previous experience with German.

An emphasis on the urban centers of Berlin and Vienna with a shorter visit to Prague will allow students to glimpse a long stretch of the area's cultural history in a concentrated geographical space, which will enable investigations of what is known in Central Europe as "Zeitgeschichte," or the history of the recent past. Alongside investigations of the story of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern families, students will engage the fascinating period around the turn of the 20th century, the interwar period, World War II, the Holocaust, and also the ways the Holocaust is remembered in Central Europe today. Jewish Central Europe will also serve as a course emphasis.