GBL 281 ICELAND: CRUCIBLE OF FIRE AND ICE -- NATURE, CULTURE, AND AUTHENTICITY
This fall semester course explores the cultural identity and volatile landscape of Iceland. Students will take a nine (9) day excursion to Iceland during Thanksgiving break. Iceland opens a new window for students into a people’s choices about sovereignty, environmental stewardship, authenticity, and building a peaceful and secure society. Students will learn and experience first-hand how Icelanders deal with severe climate disruption, economic crisis, exercise leadership in geothermal energy and practice a city-state democracy. Students may think of nature as familiar temperate zone landscapes but will learn that “getting close to nature” is very different for a nation perched atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Icelanders are a thousand-year old people, homogeneous enough to have their own mapped genome. But, like us Icelanders must also cope with pluralism and conflict in the contemporary world. How does Iceland remain authentic when summer tourists outnumber Icelanders 2 or 3 to 1? The rest of the world has suddenly discovered Iceland, so what do you hope to discover in this amazing nation?
Prerequisite
Acceptance into program.
Course Types
Expression
Offered
Offered fall.