While we're traveling in Italy check here for updates on where we've been and what we're learning. Our students will be posting regular reports and my co-teacher, Michael Carignan, and I will be posting pictures of students and sites. We invite you to follow us and to comment if you want!
This is the fourth year that Elon's Honors program has offered a travel seminar. While in the past the seminar has been in Turkey, this year we are excited to turn our attention to Italy.
Both Mike and I have experience teaching in Italy and it is country that intersects with our academic training. Specifically, Mike teaches in the History department and focuses upon modern European Intellectual History. This means he is adept at having students think about how Italy emerges as a nation in the nineteenth century and how its identity is shaped in relation to other European powers..
I teach in Elon's Religious Studies department and focus upon the New Testament and Early Christianity. I am particularly interested in how Christianity develops within the context of Roman culture and religion. Questions I pose to students revolve around the religious diversity of the ancient world and the ways that political, religious, and cultural conversations intersect and overlap. I am also interested in the ways that material culture, the things left from the past, help us understand the diverse ways ancient people inhabited their worlds.
We look forward to teaching the Honors students and learning even more along aside of them as we encounter Italy together!
Best,
Lynn Huber & Michael Carignan
