Courses of Study:
The Spoleto Study Abroad Summer programs offer students a focused immersion into an area of specific artistic interest and the study of ideas and cultures. Students explore the philosophical and conceptual ideas developed during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Italian history and literature, as well as contemporary culture and society.
Mornings are filled with structured courses and workshops. All students are enrolled in Arts & Ideas and Italian. The remaining two classes are selected to complement the student's area of specialty. Examples of these courses are: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture, History of Italian Opera, Photography, Drama workshop, and Visual Arts Workshop. These classes are from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.
During the afternoon, students focus on their area of specialty. These areas include Vocal Music, Visual Arts, Photography, Drama, and Creative Writing. This time is spent in the studio, in a seminar, on-site outdoors, or a rehearsal. Excursions to historically and artistically rich cities such as Siena, Florence, Urbino, Assisi, and Orvieto are scheduled twice-weekly. These excursions reinforce the material covered in the classroom and offer the students an opportunity to experience the rich history, art and culture of Italy first-hand.
Arts and Ideas: Arts and Ideas explores the inter-relationship among the arts - what painting or photography, for example, have in common with music or drama . It also examines what universal principles lead to theories about how culture and history help shape our views of art, how we assign value to works of art, and how we define beauty. The course complements the other courses students are taking by increasing their aesthetic awareness and enabling them to be more astute patrons of the arts as they explore the art and architecture of Spoleto and travel around central Italy.
Italian: Spoleto Study Abroad offers a daily class in basic Italian in order to enrich and enhance our students' overall cultural experience. The course covers important verbs in the present indicative, present perfect, and simple future tenses and, of course, as much vocabulary as possible. The instructor's primary goal is to enable and encourage each student to communicate with the Spoletini with whom they interact on a daily basis. These encounters never fail to create very special memories and offer the students an opportunity to have truly meaningful experiences within an authentic Italian town.
Art & Architecture of Italy (Visual Arts students): The main objective of this course is to present a broad survey of the development of art and architecture in Italy. Using the bountiful artistic treasures of central Italy as a starting point, this is an exciting course in interactive art history. Students have a chance to see world-renowned works of art and architecture created through the ages, providing fascinating insights into the historical societies that produced them.
History of Opera (required for all Vocal Music students): This course offers a general overview of what opera was at its inception, what it has become through four centuries of continuous transformation, and what it still is, with its capability to attract delirious and adoring crowds of fans! In addition to theoretical and historical background, this course provides students with a fascinating immersion into the sound and look of opera through the use of sound recordings and videos.