• Program Intro
• Calendar
• Course Information
• Housing
• Costs
• Travel Notes
• Application

Program Introduction

Penn-in-London offers students the opportunity to study English literature and culture in the great metropolis where they still flourish.

The courses will make use of the London setting in several ways. Participants will be seeing at least a dozen plays in a variety of London theaters. Michael Billington, the distinguished theater critic for The Guardian newspaper and the most respected of London’s drama reviewers and critics, will lead a weekly discussion of the plays we shall be attending. Whatever courses you choose, you will be welcome to come on the various trips and excursions that the faculty will organize to London’s many museums and historical attractions, as well as to significant sites outside the city. Classes will meet Mondays through Thursdays. 

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Program Calendar:

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Course Information

Students register for a total of two course units (CU). Course preferences are made on the application and are subject to approval by the program director. Course registration is completed by the Penn Summer Abroad office for students who confirm their intent to enroll in the program.

Note for non-Penn Students: One CU is generally considered to be equivalent to three semester hours when Penn coursework is transferred to another institution.

Courses:
The number of courses offered in this program is subject to change.

English 40: British Poetry, 1660-1914: Forms of Poetry
Fulfills Sector I or Sector 4 of the Core Requirement for the English major

This survey of British poetry of the long 18th century introduces key poetic forms such as the ode, elegy, sonnet, mock-heroic, and georgic.  Each week we will explore a different form through reading a handful of representative poems.  Poets will include Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Smith, Phyllis Wheatley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth.  Topics to be covered: life in the city of London; idealization of the countryside; the question of travel; perspectives on gender and race. (1 CU)

English 61:  British Fiction and Film  
Fulfills Category A for Cinema Studies Major, Sector 6 of the English Major or elective credit in English major with Cinema Studies emphasis.

This course compares short stories and novels to the films made from them.  It focuses on representations of British and Irish society and culture, as well as the process of adaptation and the differences between the narrative techniques of fiction and film.  Works may include Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” (John Huston, Director); Alan Sillitoe’s “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” (Tony Richardson, Director); Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girl (Desmond Davis, Director); Graham Greene’s The Third Man, (Karol Reisz, Director); Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, Director); Ian McEwan’s Atonement (Joe Wright, Director); and Julio Cortazar’s “Blowup” (Michelangelo Antonioni, Director).  Course work includes a journal of responses to readings and films and a final paper.  (1 CU)  

English 68: The London Theatre Experience
Fulfills Sector 6 of the English Major and elective credit in the Theatre Arts major or Theatre Arts minor.

London is one of the great urban theatre cultures in the world today.  This course will attempt to give students as comprehensive an introduction to that culture as possible in five weeks, chiefly through attendance at and discussion of 12 to 15 theater productions being staged this summer in London.  The productions will cover a wide range of venues from the major institutional theatres such as the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Court, and the Almeida the West End (similar to Broadway), off-West End theatres such as the Gate and the Bush, and pub theater.  The plays that are performed will cover as wide a spectrum of historical periods and styles as possible, from the classics to modern and contemporary plays to brand new works from around the world.  Students will write short response essays (not critiques or reviews) using specific guidelines after each performance, and then will discuss their responses in seminar.  Once each week the conversation will be led by Michael Billington, the distinguished theater critic for The Guardian newspaper.  Selected plays will be read and discussed prior to seeing the productions to give students insight into and a greater appreciation for how a play is transformed through a very complex collaborative process from “the page to the stage.”  In addition to theater visits, the courses will also include visits to a number of sites of interest, including London’s Theatre Museum. (1CU)

English 226:  Shakespeare’s Art, Life, and Times
Fulfills the pre-1700 or pre-1900 Seminar Requirement in the English Major and elective credit in the Theatre Arts major or Theatre Arts minor.

Mark Rylance, the first artistic director of the reconstructed Globe theater company, has said that, “we are all modern Elizabethans.”  This course is designed to investigate just what that means by examining Shakespeare’s plays, to the extent we are able, as they would have been performed at the Globe before and after the turn of the 17th Century, and as they continue to be produced today.  The course will begin by investigating the social, cultural, and theatrical conditions that shaped Elizabethan London and examine Shakespeare’s plays as he wrote them and had them professionally produced at the Globe theater on the south bank of the Thames.  We will discuss the plays that will be performed this summer at the Globe, placing particular emphasis on them as works to be spoken, acted, and staged before a live audience.  This course is not in any way an attempt to historically reconstruct the Elizabethan theatre or to rediscover an “authentic” Shakespeare.  The Globe is a laboratory for investigating the very live and dynamic relationship among the theater, the plays, the performers and their audience.  If possible, this course will also examine one of Shakespeare’s plays that will be staged this summer under contemporary theatre conditions, perhaps in a radically reconceived theatrical form.  Our purpose will not be to set one approach to performing Shakespeare against another, but to expand our understanding of how his plays can remain as alive for us today, as “modern Elizabethans,” as they were for a London audience four hundred years ago.  Course work will include readings on the historical background of Elizabethan London and its theatre; the examination of three or four plays and an investigation of them in live performance; field trips; and a final 15-20 page essay due at the start of the fall semester.  (1 CU)

English  293:  Multicultural London
Fulfills Sector 2 or 6 of the English major Core Requirement and/or a Seminar Requirement.

What makes London such a vibrant city is its ethnic diversity and rich history of immigration.  This course focuses on contemporary novels that feature London as a cosmopolitan space.  Reading about the city’s diverse neighborhoods—North, South, East and West—will also introduce different parts of town that offer much in the way of culture, food, shops, architecture, and history that can be explored firsthand.  Writers will include Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, Andrea Levy, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, and Samuel Selvon. (1 CU)

Faculty

This program is directed by Dr. David Espey, English Department, University of Pennsylvania. Email: despey@english.upenn.edu.

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Housing

Students are housed at 21 Pembridge Gardens, a private student hostel located in the attractive neighborhood of Nottinghill on the northwest corner of Kensington Gardens.

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Costs

Note: All tuition charges and fees are subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees and may change without notice.

Tuition: $5,866 (2009 Rate)

$2,933 per course unit (CU). Students are required to enroll for two CUs.

Program Fee: $2,500 (2008 rate. Rates for 2009 will be posted by December 1, 2008.)

Includes accommodation, theatre tickets for classes, cultural activities organized by the program. 

The tuition and program fee are billed to the student’s Penn account according to the Summer Sessions billing schedule.

Other Expenses: Students are responsible for other direct expenses including:  

• roundtrip air ticket to London
• meals
• local transportation
• course materials
• personal expenses and entertainment

William A. Levi Travel Fellowship

Financial Aid
Penn Summer Abroad programs may be supported by financial aid. Penn Students seeking financial aid for a program abroad should contact Student Financial Services (www.sfs.upenn.edu) and complete the undergraduate student financial application for the summer term. Non-Penn students apply for financial aid from their home institution.

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Travel Notes

Passport: Make sure that your passport is valid for at least six months beyond the end date of the program. If you do not already have a passport or need to renew it, you should begin the process immediately. Passport application forms and instructions can be obtained at the U.S. Post Office or at http://travel.state.gov/.

Visa: U.S. Citizens will enter the United Kingdom as a ‘short-term’ visitor. This does not require a visa application but you will need to travel with certain documents. Additional information and instructions will be provided by Penn Summer Abroad in the Spring. Citizens from other countries should confirm with the British Embassy whether or not a visa is required. If so, you will need to apply several months in advance. Contact the Penn Summer Abroad office for assistance in obtaining required documents for the visa.

Air Tickets:  Penn Summer Abroad does not organize travel overseas. Start researching flights early. There are many possibilities and a large variation in prices. You will receive the list of all students in your program. Contact the ones who are likely to travel from the same airport. You may be able to travel together.

Immunizations: Make sure you receive all appropriate inoculations. Consult with your physician and/or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, which provides information on vaccines and immunizations for travel abroad. http://www.cdc.gov/.

Additional information will be provided in the acceptance packet and in pre-departure orientations that will take place in the spring.

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To Apply

Applications for Penn-in-London are open. Note however that the section for course selection in this program is not up yet (as of November 20, 2009). This means you can start the application now for the January 20 early admissions deadline but will not be able to submit it until further notice.

• Click here to apply to the program.

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