Andalusia

Through a gracious grant by the Lauder Family Foundation, we are proud to present this website dedicated to our embedded travel course, Andalusia. 

This course explores the intersection of cultures, religions, languages, and peoples through the history, architecture, poetry, music, philosophy, and everyday life of southern Spain. Special focus on the cultural flourishing resulting from the contact—and sometimes clash—of European, Spanish, Islamic, Arab, African, Middle Eastern, and Jewish civilizations and of the Arabic, Spanish, and Hebrew languages. Analyzes overlaps in mystical conceptions of the divine, in philosophical ideas about rational knowledge, in poetic and musical forms, in architectural styles, and in shared histories. We also explore how Andalusian culture continues to thrive in modern consciousness (through music, poetry, art, dance, architecture, etc.) as a crossroads of civilizations.

COURSE GOALS

1. to understand the specific histories and cultures of these three different religious traditions during the medieval period
2. to understand how these specific religious traditions interacted with, borrowed from, and inspired each other
3. to understand how this history informed the trajectory leading toward the European Renaissance and Enlightenment
4. to understand how this history informed the trajectory leading toward the conquest of the Americas
5. to be able to think critically about issues of cultural diversity and coexistence, as well as intolerance, and how it relates to the world we live in today