Communication and English courses are taught in English by CofC faculty.
Students normally enroll in 12 hours while in Florence. Students may choose their 12 hours from among the following Communication and English courses:
Communication (All courses taught by Dr. Lacroix)
- COMM 315 – Ethical Communication: Ethics of Travel and Sustainability
- COMM 410 – Analysis of Communication Practice
- COMM 480 – Capstone in Communication: Living, Learning, and Chronicling Culture Abroad
English
- ENGL 360: Cooking the Books—Food and Feminism in Fiction (Dr. Farrell). Counts as a Gen Ed Humanities requirement and toward the Women’s and Gender Studies major and minor
- ENGL 365: The Idea of Italy in American Literature and Film (Dr. Farrell). Counts as a Gen Ed Humanities requirement
- ENGL 366 OR ENGL 339: Travel Writing (Dr. Kelly). 339 counts as a Gen Ed Humanities requirement
PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Dr. Celeste Lacroix, Communication Department, lacroixc@cofc.edu, 843.953.5654
Dr. Lacroix teaches cross-cultural communication. She has significant study abroad experience, having taught CofC students in Spain and Italy and other European destinations numerous times since 2001.
Dr. Joe Kelly, English Department, kellyj@cofc.edu, 843.953.4815
Dr. Kelly is a specialist in Irish and modern British literature. He has directed ten different summer study abroad programs in Ireland, has taught in Spain twice, and taught travel writing in Florence, Italy in 2019.
Dr. Susan Farrell, English Department, farrells@cofc.edu
Dr. Farrell teaches American literature, specializing in the 20th century and the contemporary period. She has taught several times in Spain and was co-director of the Florence trip in 2019.
FULL COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
COMM 315 – Ethical Communication—Ethics of Travel and Sustainability
Full description coming soon
COMM 410 – Analysis of Communication Practice
Full description coming soon
COMM 480 – Capstone in Communication: Living, Learning, and Chronicling Culture Abroad
Full description coming soon
ENGL 360: Cooking the Books—Food and Feminism in Fiction
The theme of the Florence trip is the Italian slow food movement, which was dreamed up in 1986 by Italian food and wine journalist Carlo Petrini as a way to oppose the encroachment of fast food into Italian culture. This course will take up issues of food and feminism as we examine literary treatments of food and how they relate to women’s issues. Topics may include food, cooking, and power; food and domestic ideology; poisons and toxins; sustainable food practices; ecofeminism; agricultural and environmental racism; food and bodies; food and media; food and ethnic identity; and cookbooks/blogs/other forms of food writing.
Note: This class counts as a General Education Humanities requirement. It also counts toward the Women’s and Gender Studies major and minor
ENGL 365: The Idea of Italy in American Literature and Film
This course will examine how American writers and filmmakers have imagined Italy and Italians, from the nineteenth century forward. We’ll look at how writers such as Henry James and Edith Wharton adapted the idea of “The Grand Tour” of Europe to American needs, how writers such as Mark Twain satirized it, and how filmmaker William Wylie updated the theme for the 1950s in his film Roman Holiday. We’ll examine, as well, how American Romantic writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne imagined Italy as a place for gothic passion, mystery, and intrigue, and we’ll discuss how director Anthony Minghella continued this tradition in his contemporary film, The Talented Mr. Ripley. We will discuss twentieth-century wartime Italy as represented in Ernest Hemingway’s work and in a Holocaust memoir by Helen Fremont. In the course’s final unit, we’ll explore the theme of Italian American immigrants in more contemporary works, focusing specifically on the classic film The Godfather.
Note: This class counts as a General Education Humanities requirement.
ENGL 366 OR ENGL 339: Travel Writing
Who can live in Italy and not be changed? As Dr. Farrell’s “The Idea of Italy in American Lit and Film” demonstrates, we’ve been using Italy for well over a hundred years to learn more about ourselves and our place in the world. In this course you will develop new ideas about who you are, who we are as Americans, and what exactly is Italy and Italians. Just as importantly, you’ll discover how writing about your travels catalyzes these chemical changes in identity. We will read different types of travel writing, we’ll figure out what those types do to readers and to writers. Ultimately, you’ll decide who’s your audience, what’s your own purpose, and you’ll write to those ends.
Note: If you take this class under the ENGL 339 designation, it counts as a General Education Humanities Requirement.