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2023 Course Descriptions 

Spend your mornings learning from an expert from Oxford's Merton College. Choose from five featured course subjects: The Rise & Fall of the British Empire; The Monarchy and the British Constitution, 1660-2023; Archaeology of Britain; Jane Austen’s Novels and Contexts. Please indicate your top three choices of course subject at the time of booking, with final assignments to be determined based on traveler interest. Enrollment is limited. Information on experts can be found on the Enrichment tab.

Classes will be interspersed with excursions, including a discussion about the UK university system and a visit to Pembroke College, which was attended by James Smithson—the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution. Each course will also feature an additional special excursion tailored to its theme.

The Rise & Fall of the British Empire

This course will examine the rise and fall of the British Empire, from its unlikely and unplanned origins in an age of piracy, through its rivalry with other powers, its Victorian zenith, and two world wars, to its decolonization in the second half of the twentieth century. Such concepts as formal and informal empires, imperial structures, and methods of control, including collaboration, will be discussed.

Field Trip: Travel to Sezincote House in Gloucester, constructed in 1805 when British India was becoming the “jewel in the crown” of the world’s largest empire.

The Monarchy and the British Constitution, 1660-2023

Queen Elizabeth II has now served seventy years as the British sovereign and it is timely to consider how this institution has survived into the 21st century and why it just might continue for considerably longer. Taking the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II as our starting point, we will explore the long process of constitutional reforms through which the divine and hereditary rights of earlier monarchs were successively eroded and the powers of sovereignty ultimately transferred to the Houses of Parliament. As we will find, this did not mean that British monarchs were ever powerless. Royal influence and patronage continued to operate at the very heart of British politics, shaping the course of events both at home and abroad. Today, the monarchy faces an uncertain future: can it still have a role to play in British public life through the twenty-first century? 

Field Trip: Visit Windsor Castle in Berkshire, the royal residence associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, with a rich architectural and cultural history.

The Archaeology of Britain

The archaeology of Britain is rich in culture and heritage from its earliest presence of hunter-gatherers from the Upper Palaeolithic (ca. 40,000-10,000 BCE) to the present day. In this course, students will reference artifacts, landscapes, burials, settlements, and monuments to explore the significant changes in the lifeways and material worlds of the people who arrived, moved around and dwelt in the British Isles. Explore Britain’s archaeological history and gain unique insight into the culture and stories of this unique island archipelgo from the introduction of the great stone henge monuments of the Neolithic (e.g. Orkney, Scotland), rich burial evidence that demonstrates migration and cultural identities (e.g. Amesbury Archer, Wiltshire), ritual and religious practices (e.g. Roman Baths, Bath), and heritage.  

Field Trip: Visit the ceremonial World Heritage sites of Stonehenge and Avebury, which present evidence from the earliest presence of human interaction to the present day. Also visit Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of art and archaeology.

Jane Austen in Context (September 2023 only)

Since the publication in 1811 of a novel called Sense and Sensibility “by a lady,” the works of  Jane Austen have enjoyed both popularity and critical acclaim. Scholarly interest shows no sign of waning; nor does what can be described as a popular mania for all things Austen, especially in film and television. This course will examine the enduringly popular novels of Jane Austen, considering her novelistic technique and development, and her place among women writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  We will place each novel in its literary and historical context, looking at eighteenth-century cult of sensibility, for example, when  discussing Sense and Sensibility, and the contemporary vogue for gothic novels when we study Austen’s burlesque of the gothic genre, Northanger Abbey.  Other themes that will be covered include Austen’s treatment of class, economics, education, female friendship, courtship, and politics.

Field Trip: Visit the Jane Austen House Museum, where Austen lived for the final eight years of her life, along with the nearby Chawton House Library, a historic Elizabethan home, which serves as the The Centre for the Study of Early Women’s Writing.