Krakow, Poland

David Ost, Political Science and David Weiss, English, Resident Directors, Fall '98

(Note: This is a summary of the last program to provide some basic information. Specific details of the 1998 program will be provided at recruitment sessions and orientation meetings.)

The Colleges offer a program in Poland in affiliation with the Jagiellonian University (founded in 1364) of Krakow, Poland. Krakow, the host city, is the ideal student location with over 18,000 students and 2,000 faculty at the Jagiellonian University, one of the great intellectual centers in Europe. Traditionally scholars and students have been attracted from all over the world. Nicolaus Copernicus and Pope John Paul II both studied in Krakow. HWS students will study at the School for Central and Eastern European Studies (SCEES). By living and studying in Krakow students have the opportunity to observe first hand some of the dramatic changes that Poland has experienced in the last few years with the transformation from a communist, centrally-planned system to a liberally-oriented market society. The city itself, is a marvel of astonishing old architecture (virtually untouched by the war), beautiful parks and gardens, and a vibrant street life on the banks of the Vistula River, making it one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe.

APPROXIMATE PROGRAM DATES: September 11 to December 13, 1998

ACCOMMODATIONS
Students are housed in university dormitories, "Piast" and have the option of choosing to reside with a Polish roommate. By living in the dormitory setting along with local students, participants have the opportunity to experience fully student life. Meals can be obtained in university cafeterias or in inexpensive local restaurants.

EXCURSIONS
Group excursions are planned to Prague, Warsaw and Gdansk (where the solidarity movement began), Auschwitz, the Wieliczka salt mine and Zakopane (Tatra Mountains).

ELIGIBILITY
Any non first year student in good standing is eligible to apply for the program. Students are required to submit an essay that outlines clearly why participation in the program would help to fulfill academic and personal goals.

APPROXIMATE COSTS
Students will be charged a program fee that includes the regular term tuition ($7309--’97-’98) and a somewhat higher room charge ($1263--’96 Program) due to the length of the program (13 weeks compared to the normal 10 week on campus term). Additional costs include airfare, food allowance, books and personal expenses. Estimates of costs are available at the Office of Off-Campus Programs.

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Polish Language (Local Faculty)
Students will receive instruction in small classes for the duration of the program.

Political Science: From Civil Society to Bourgeois Society (Ost)
As a study of the changing ideas of East European political thinkers over the past three decades, this course serves students as an intellectual guidebook to the subtleties and peculiarities of the East European mind. It is an important course for foreign students in the region, who may well be tempted to see the new realities there as more familiar than they actually are. Through the course, students will come to know how Eastern Europe got to be thought of the way it is today. The course looks at the odyssey of the East European democratic idea, forcing students to ask questions not only about their own understanding of democracy, but about the contemporary Eastern European understanding as well.

English 360: Twentieth Century East European Fiction (Weiss)
The course has two foci--Eastern European in general and Poland in particular. It explores the Eastern European experience of this century as prophesied and registered through the novel and the novel’s form. Through the use of texts well-known in the west and others not so familiar issues are raised that have deviled our time from totalitarianism to the nature of evil to the chimerical and existentialist nature of the self. In the context of the students’ experiences and their other courses the course attempts to dwell on and identify the intersections of literature and history in Poland.

Bidis 239: The Politics of Culture (Ost and Weiss)
The course focuses on the role and the situation of the intellectual in Eastern Europe in the post-war era. In the course there will be a creative writing component -- creative non-fiction through which students learn ways to delve into and articulate the complex, many-faceted dimensions of their experience. Non-fiction accounts of Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism are read and discussed. Students are asked to write about their experiences in Krakow that goes beyond the everyday and leads them to an understanding of how personal experiences reveal important cultural and political truths.

Courses from the SCEES program--as a fourth course students can choose from the regular SCEES offerings. Some possibilities include: "Constitutional History of Eastern Europe", "History of East European Jews", "The Catholic Church in Poland", "Eastern and Central European Drama of the 20th Century", "Women in the Contemporary World", and "Social Life and Social Consciousness in Poland under Communism". A more complete list and other program details are available at the Office of Off-Campus Programs.