Cork Specialty Courses – 2024 Summer
Studying abroad can be a more meaningful and invigorating learning experience than at home—both inside and outside of the classroom. You may be more curious and alert than you usually are so use this heightened energy to enhance your studies as well as your cultural and geographical explorations. You may also encounter different teaching styles and course processes; be prepared to adapt and to learn.
Courses
You may take three to seven credits during the summer session. At least one 3-credit course is required. Course availability is contingent upon and enrollment and is subject to change.
Click the course title to view course details, description, and availability.
- SummerCommunity Health Sciences 400-level 3 credits Taught in English
Food shopping, preparation, and consumption are central to any encounter with a new culture. But in contemporary American life, the specter of the ‘obesity epidemic’ haunts many experiences of food and eating so that, for many Americans, encountering a new food culture also raises questions about obesity at home and abroad. This course offers you the opportunity to explore these questions, comparing your home culture(s) with the culture(s) you encounter during your time in Ireland. For example, the United States is often portrayed as the ‘fast food nation’ where everything is ‘supersized’ – including the waistlines of the citizens. By contrast, European countries such as Ireland are supposed to be slimmer and healthier. But how accurate is this depiction? In this course, we will go beyond the stereotypes to compare the food cultures in the USA and Ireland. What roles do food and eating play in the societies of the USA and Ireland? How is obesity understood and experienced in Ireland, and does this differ from the USA? How do our food cultures relate to our understandings and experiences of obesity? We will explore these and related questions through reading, discussion, lectures, activities, and field trips, aiming to develop a critical and cosmopolitan perspective on food, obesity, and society.
- SummerAnthropology History 100-level 1 credit Taught in English
The ‘In Search of Irish Roots: Tracing your Family Genealogy’ syllabus takes place over five sessions, with a distinct topic for each session. This course is about far more than genealogical sources; it also facilitates an interdisciplinary understanding of the primary sources and principal events that have shaped Ireland over the past several hundred years. It will therefore provide an overview of social, cultural, and political change in Irish society, so as to lead to a further understanding of the shaping of modern Ireland. It draws on cultural, political, and historical geographies of Ireland and includes analysis of class, religion, place, patronage, politics and territorial organisation, the impact of landlordism and landscape transformation, the distribution of secular and religious institutions, nation-building, and state formation. All of the above topics are address and put into practice during two out-of-classroom fieldtrip tours (Cork North Inner and South Inner City).
May be taken in addition to the 6-credit maximum.
- SummerManagement Political Science 400-level 3 credits Taught in English
This course is designed for students to develop a strong theoretical foundation in international conflict resolution. Students will develop the knowledge and the skills to evaluate conflict situations and analyze outcomes. This course will cover topics related to contemporary state-based conflicts, and students will learn and discuss the complexities and contradictions of specific events in history. Students will evaluate the nature of international conflict and how it has evolved over time and explore the various stages and strategies of conflict prevention, containment, and resolution.
- SummerAnthropology English 200-level 3 credits Taught in English
This course will provide students with a stimulating and enriching introduction to the academic discipline of folklore through learning about the material and intangible culture of Cork and Ireland. There will be a focus on the collection, archiving and dissemination of folklore and oral history in Cork and Ireland. The themes of social and sacred assembly as well as community culture will be outlined and discussed. Aspects of material culture such as housing, furniture, and food will also be considered. Students will put their ethnographic skills into practice on the class field trip to the Muskerry Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area).
- SummerGaelic World Languages and Literatures 100-level 3 credits Taught in English
This course is a comprehensive introduction to daily language with emphasis on the spoken word. Participants will learn how to engage in basic conversation in Irish and will also focus on listening, reading, and writing skills. The classes are very interactive, and students will engage in group work and oral tasks in every class. Students will receive a brief overview of the syntax & phonology of the language and will have an opportunity to gain an insight into Irish culture.
- SummerMusic 400-level 3 credits Taught in English
Music-making in Ireland today encompasses a wide range of scenes, communities and sub-cultures, each performing slightly different versions of Irishness. This course examines the last 50 years of popular, classical and traditional music through the prism of national and regional identity, with special focus on the vibrant live music scene in Cork City. Taking in artists such as U2, Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison and Hozier, students will examine how music reflects different ways of being Irish.
- SummerEnglish History 400-level 3 credits Taught in English
Selected texts representative of the earliest poetry of Ireland are studied in translation. The primary aim of this course is to examine the context that gave rise to the earliest vernacular literature in Europe through a close reading of particular poems. This would provide participants with a broad overview of the Medieval period in Ireland, including the monastic tradition, and its influence on the continent of Europe (i.e., why Ireland became the ‘Land of Saints and Scholars’).
The emphasis is on the salient themes that are readily identifiable in these texts such as love, loss, exile, longing, companionship, love of nature and the onset of old age.
In addition to the poetry itself, students would gain an insight into the following:
• cultural context of the time;
• glimpses of Irish society and its place in the world;
• palaeography (with images from some of the manuscripts themselves as well as a possible guest lecturer who specialises in palaeography); and
• an overview suitable for non-Irish language speakers of the linguistic and metrical rules of the poetry itself.
- SummerHistory Political Science 300-level 3 credits Taught in English
The course encompasses the decisive era of modern Irish history, between 1912 and 1923; that is, from the bitter campaign over the Third Home Rule Bill, through the confrontations over female suffrage and labor organization, to the trauma of engagement in World War I, the Easter Rising, the rise of Sinn Féin, and the eclipse of constitutional nationalism, partition, the War of Independence, and the Treaty split and ensuing Civil War. It examines the roles played by key individuals during this ‘revolutionary decade,’ as well as the international, and especially the American, contexts during this time. It will introduce students to the key issues that arose during the ‘revolutionary decade’ in modern Irish history.
To request a course syllabus: syllabus@usac.edu