Honors Seminar Abroad

 




Course Title:  Art and Economics in the Bloomsbury Group 

Instructors:  Dr. Barry Falk (Professor of Economics) and Dr. Maureen Shanahan (Associate Professor of Art History) 

Description: This will be a six-credit Honors Seminar on Art and Economics in the Bloomsbury Group. It will require some preparatory work in the preceding semester and reflective work in the proceeding semester, but will be centered on three weeks in London soon after final exams conclude. The seminar will be open to first and second year honors students. 

Background: The Bloomsbury Group is a celebrated group of intellectuals, artists, and public figures who lived in or near London in the early twentieth century who closely interacted with one another. Bloomsbury is a district in London which was the geographical center of the Group's meetings. The core of the Bloomsbury Group included economist John Maynard Keynes, writers Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey, artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry, and critics Clive Bell and Leonard Woolf. However, there were many others who had varying degrees of connection to the group. The Bloomsbury district of London is where the University of London, home of JMU's London program, is located and it is where students will reside during their London stay. 

Professor Craufurd Goodwin (Duke University) puts it this way in describing the group:
 

Some features of the Bloomsbury Group that are most attractive and intriguing

 are (1) the remarkable amount of intellectual firepower that they could muster

collectively; (2) the general commitment of most of them to revolutionary change

in the various areas that they represented - art, economics, fiction, ethics,

biography, criticism, history, political philosophy, psychology, esthetics; (3) the

 attention members paid to the thoughts of others in the Group and the inclusion

 of the ideas of the others in their own work; (4) their candor with others and with

themselves; (5) their sense of fun and joie de vivre, combined with (6) their

commitment to hard work (on whatever they were engaged)and improvement of

human welfare.
 

Course Structure: The course is designed as an experiential learning course for first and second year Honors Scholars. Class size will be limited to 20 students. The course will be structured as a six credit honors seminar and will satisfy the honors seminar requirement for Track I and Track II honors students. 

It will begin with approximately biweekly two-hour meetings on campus in the spring semester of 2010. Students will use this semester to do readings, watch films, and attend guest lectures to become acquainted with the principal figures of the Bloomsbury Group, the activities of the Group, and the Group's geographical and historical setting. They will use this period to get to know one another and the instructors. They will be involved in helping to plan the summer itinerary.  

For the three weeks in London, the group will become immersed in the Bloomsbury Group experience, especially as it relates to economics and the visual arts. The students will meet with the instructors four mornings per week (MTWTh) for two hours of classroom work. Students will meet these afternoons for local field trips and "Bloomsbury-style" free-flowing discussions on a wide variety of subjects of interest to the Bloomsbury Group (e.g., philosophy, arts, political science, current events, etc.), but in a modern context.   The first and third Fridays will likely be used for field trips outside of London (Charleston, the country home for members of the Bloomsbury Group, and Cambridge University, which played an important role in the formation of the Group and it worldviews).  There will be a free two-day weekend and a free three-day weekend for students to use as they see fit such as, for example, travel to Scotland or even Paris (via the Channel train). 

Students will help plan and will participate in a September 2010 symposium and reception centered on the seminar topic. Each student will make a 10-15 minute presentation and participate as a discussant. The symposium will be open to the JMU public. Honors students and faculty will be especially encouraged to attend. 

The seminar will be offered as a Short-Term Study Abroad course and enrollment in the seminar will begin next fall through the Office of International Programs. We are hopeful that the six credits of summer school tuition students will pay to participate will cover nearly all costs, except for airfare. In addition, we hope to be able to offer some tuition support for students with demonstrated financial need. 

Evaluation: Student evaluations will be based primarily on participation, engagement, and written work in the preparatory meetings in spring 2010, the living/learning experience in London, and the symposium. 

Honors Rationale: The program will be a distinctively honors seminar because it foregrounds several aims of the honors program: interdisciplinary study, critical engagement, work with primary materials, debate and discussion, oral presentation, and collaboration with other highly motivated students. The extensive preparatory meetings in the spring term differentiate this program from other short term study abroad programs that typically only have one or two preparatory meetings.  The student symposium also distinguishes this program from other study abroad offerings. It provides students a unique opportunity to reflect upon their experiences and share their insights with others. The preparation and reflective components, as noted above, are consistent with best national practices in honors study abroad. Finally, the seminar draws upon the research expertise and interests of the teaching faculty.  Dr. Falk is an economist and as a specialist in macroeconomics is well-acquainted with the work and life of John Maynard Keynes. Dr. Shanahan is an art historian with specialties on early twentieth century modernism, the artistic and literary responses to the Great War, and representation and theories of sexuality, which are central themes of the Bloomsbury Group.