Greece
Athens & Tolon


May 13 - June 1, 2013

Total Program Fee: $4225 

Academics and Courses    Application, Cost, and Important Details

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is possible that not all TnCIS programs or all TnCIS courses are available at your institution. A complete listing of courses offered at each member institution is available at www.tncis.org/members. Please contact your TnCIS campus representative for instructions on registering and paying fees.

 

 

Program Location:

The Greece program will be held in two major locations, with a variety of day trips. We will begin in Athens, the birthplace of Western philosophy and literature. We will visit the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Ancient Agora, Mars Hill, the National Archaeology Museum, and other sites of interest.  As we make our way toward Tolon, we will stop along the way at Delphi, Patras, and/or Olympia.  Our headquarters for the remaining two weeks is Tolon, located in the northeastern corner of the Peloponnese, very near Nafplion, which was the first capital of the modern nation. Although Tolon has become somewhat more popular with tourists in recent years, it has retained most of its charm and all of its friendliness. While in Tolon, we will visit Mycenae and Epidaurus, visit the ancient theatre at Argos as well as ancient Corinth.  We will cruise to a couple of Greece’s numerous and lovely islands, having our own private cookout to celebrate the end of the trip.

Program Description:

Greece is justifiably considered the "birthplace of western philosophy," and much of its history relates back to the primary thinkers and artists of ancient civilization, when so many works of philosophy, the arts, and even history reflected the same principles. The philosophy, ethics, composition, and world literature courses will study works from this period while program excursions will serve to enhance topics studied in each course.  The international business course will demonstrate how cultural factors influence the conduct of business across national borders.  Students will have an opportunity to meet and interview business professionals from Greece.

Excursions: There will be multiple excursions in and around the Tolon and Athens vicinities. Excursions may include visits to Mycenae and Epidaurus, Olympia, Corinth, Delphi, Patras, the temple of Poseidon, the Acropolis, and the Ancient Agora.

Please note: Prospective students should be aware that study abroad programs require a great deal of walking. You should be prepared to walk at least a mile or two each day, and you should bring shoes that are appropriate for comfortable walking. You may also walk over steep, uneven, possibly slippery or rocky terrain even in cities.  Flip-flops are not recommended for such walking, although they can come in handy while in the seashore village of Tolon.

Classes: Classes will be held three hours per day during the week.

Accommodations: Budget accommodations in hotels in Athens, Patras, Delphi, and Tolon will include two meals a day (breakfast and dinner).

Academics:

All TnCIS programs are academic in nature and course work that takes advantage of the program location will be the central focus. TnCIS program courses are for credit only. In Greece, students will enroll in ONE of the following courses:

ENGLISH: English Composition II (Prerequisite: ENGL 1010)
This course will focus on reading and responding to short fiction, poetry, drama, and/or non-fiction prose.  Aristotle once said, “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”  However, the education is as sweet as the fruit when attained in Greece, the country that gave birth to formal education.  In Greece, students will learn and apply Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric – invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery – as they write essays related to Classical Greek literature, as well as the writings of more modern authors who keep those Classics alive.  Excursions to ancient sites well known by Aristotle and his contemporaries, such as Delphi and the Acropolis, will inspire students in their compositions.  Students will be able to sit on the stone seats where those venerated ancients once sat at Epidaurus to watch Classical Greek drama come to life.  Visits to some of the small islands of Greece will give students the opportunity to reflect on the beauty of Greece, as well as its historical value to society.  See course syllabus

ENGLISH: Western World Literature I (Prerequisites: ENGL 1010 & 1020)
This course is a survey of masterpieces of Western World Literature from the Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance periods.  Students will visit sites that are relevant to the works of the Greek classical philosophers and dramatists, as well as sites that are significant to Greek culture.  In a “brick and mortar” classroom, students learn about those infamous three crossroads at which occurred an incident that heaped sorrow upon sorrow on Oedipus and his family.  In Greece, we will actually see those very crossroads.  Likewise, the study of early Christian literature is enhanced by students standing on the very spot where the Apostle Paul gave his famous sermon on Mars Hill, and a view of old Corinth contextualizes the letter to the Corinthians in a memorable way.  While in Greece, students can see, and even stand upon, those locations.  Walking in the steps of the philosophers and dramatists, students can experience, hands-on, the steps of the Acropolis where young men sat at the feet of the philosophers, and they can see for themselves the set-up of the ancient stages in which the acoustics are so perfect that a whisper from the center of the stage is easily heard by the most remote audience member.   See course syllabus

PHILOSOPHY: Ancient Religion and Ethics (No Prerequisites)
This course is an exploration of the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Greece and the moral teachings of early Greek philosophers. Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Epicureans were interested in some of life’s most important questions like what the good life is, what the right thing to do is, and what kind of people we should become. We will examine their answers to these questions and try to answer the questions for ourselves. Also, we will visit sites of particular interest to early Greek philosophy and religion such as the following locations in Athens: the Acropolis, Mars Hill, the Parthenon, and Socrates' prison cell. We will also study the five major Greek cults including the cults of Athena Polias, Demeter Eleusinia, Dionysus of Thebes, Apollo Pythios of Delphi and Zeus of Olympia, and we will visit sites related to all of them including the the sanctuary of Apollo Pythios of Delphi, along with the mystical Oracle of Delphi.  We will also visit the Temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea, as well as various ancient battle sites including the Lion’s Gate. See course syllabus

PHILOSOPHY: Introduction to Philosophy (No Prerequisites)
This course is an investigation of the fundamental questions pertaining to reality, truth, freedom, the nature of humankind, the existence of God and social/political theory.  Western philosophy began in Greece about twenty-five centuries ago.  In this course we will begin by visiting a dozen or so archeological sites (and the museums at those sites) which are relevant to the lives and ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  The premise supporting this course is that these on-site experiences will result in a more meaningful introduction to the philosophy course.  We will also visit a number of other locations which are relevant to some earlier Greek “thinkers,” who might be regarded as the “grandfathers of philosophy.”  In the second half of the course, we will read and discuss a book by a modern philosopher, David Hume.  See course syllabus

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