Spring '23: Four experiential local-global opportunities - fully funded.

Course: MGMT 2XX “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Communities Supporting Startups”
0.5 unit course in Spring 2023. Apply by September 19, 2022.

During a week long experience you will develop an understanding of how entrepreneurial ecosystems can provide support and foundation for entrepreneurs. Hands-on experiences with people and entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO´s) in Richmond, Virginia, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Stockholm, Sweden will provide a rich foundation for understanding a community’s impact on innovation and quality of life.

Faculty: Doug Bosse and Somiah Lattimore

Travel Dates: May 7 –May 13, 2023 *dates subject to change

Course: “Conservation and Restoration: From the River City to Aotearoa, NZ”
0.5 unit course in Spring 2023. Apply by September 19, 2022.

In this 2.5 week program, you will examine the conservation of biodiversity, restoration of wildlife and the environment, and the role of culture and community in Richmond, VA (the River City) and New Zealand (Aotearoa in the Māori language). In Richmond, explore environmental management practices on campus (the eco-corridor) and the James River. In New Zealand, you will travel across the North and South Island to experience the linkages between biodiversity, culture, and restoration. Through outdoor field experiences and readings, students will learn conservation practices for preserving biodiversity and managing invasive species. Students will engage with governmental offices, grassroots institutions, and community voices.

Faculty: Kristine Grayson and Jon Dattelbaum

Travel Dates: May 9 – May 26, 2023 *dates subject to change

Selected students must attend a kick-off James River tour on Saturday, October 15 and actively participate in events during New Zealand Week November 14 –18.

Course: ENGL 299 “American Blackness in Berlin”
1-unit course in Spring 2023. Register during open registration in Fall 2022.

How does jazz in Germany represent American Blackness? This course examines jazz as an African/American musical art form that quickly gained a lasting international footprint. After establishing jazz as an African American cultural development that emerged from the Black vernacular tradition, this course will explore representations of American jazz during the various eras of 20th century Berlin: in the Weimar Republic era, the novel Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse (1927), NetFlix’s “Babylon Berlin” (2017, set in 1927), and Josephine Baker’s explosion of popularity in the late 1920s/early 1930s; in the Nazi era, as in the film Swing Kids (1993); through the post-war appearances of Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz luminaries on Berlin concert stages; and arriving at contemporary representations of jazz in post-unification Berlin in Paul Beatty’s 2008 novel Slumberland. How does jazz continue to represent America in Germany throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? How does jazz in Germany represent American Blackness? Just what is the attraction for local devotees of this music? Can we “see” and “hear” Blackness in the performance of this music? What does it look and sound like in person, when we’re actually sitting in a Berlin jazz club? What (Black, American, German) cultural and musical influences are swirling in the air as listeners experience this music? We will study jazz through the representations of it in the above texts, and then travel to Berlin over spring break to immerse ourselves into the Berlin jazz club scene, conversing with Berlin jazz musicians, seeking to answer questions of International Jazz and American Culture.

Faculty: Bert Ashe assisted by Aileen Echelberger

Travel Dates: March 4 –11, 2023