GBL 1400 PREPARATORY SEMINAR FOR HOLOCAUST JOURNEY
This course helps prepare students academically, inter-culturally, linguistically and logistically for their short-term global experience. The seminar is offered on campus in the semester prior to the 4 sh global engagement experience. Completion of the pre-departure preparatory seminar is required for participation in GBL 2400 HOLOCAUST JOURNEY.
Course Types
Civilization; Jewish Studies Elective; German Studies Elective
Notes
This course is a required prerequisite for GBL:2400.
Course Outcomes
- 1. Starting to develop your ability to look critically and evaluate your own culture and biases as we look through the lens of events almost one century ago that still resonate today. We will frame this through the lens of the Holocaust.
2. The Holocaust was very much about the “other”. We will look at differences, then and now, and work on developing self-awareness and self-confidence through exposure to and reflection on difference. We will look carefully at the threads of history that connect those times with the modern age, while not getting into the idea of comparing genocides throughout history but focusing on this particular genocide. We will learn about propaganda and how it influenced the Nazis…and resonates today. The Holocaust emphasized difference and we will contextualize that.
3. We will be in different places and deal with unfamiliar languages, currency, and cultures. We will learn how to approach these differences, to solve problems, and operate in sometimes challenging and uncomfortable situations.
4. We will learn how to interact and communicate effectively with those from another culture or background using appropriate cultural and linguistic strategies.
5. In the fall, we will look at what happened and why in hopes of understanding the multiple dimensions of human experience within and across cultures and environments. We will obtain the background knowledge needed to better understand what we will see in January.
6. We will use the Holocaust to inform the examination of our responsibilities as an active global citizen informed by multiple cultural perspectives. We will learn about our personal responsibilities to those, who in the aftermath of the Holocaust say, “Never Again