SPRING 2026 Travel Course Offerings
| Course | Topic and Destination | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| BUS 235T | Corporate SR (Mediterranean Region) | Schultz |
| The course provides students with a state-of-the-art understanding of corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The practical relevance of CSR is highlighted through various examples that show how corporations have to deal with emerging ecological and social sustainability issues and stakeholder demands. Given the challenges' underlying complexity and uncertainty as well as multi-stakeholder involvement, corporations require awareness and strategic thinking to engage with their evolving responsibilities. Drawing on examples from various sectors, students will learn about different managerial approaches to address CSR issues and meet diverging stakeholder demands when designing and implementing long-term CSR strategies. To enrich the learning experience, the course includes a travel component where students can opt for a Mediterranean cruise visiting Italy, France, and Spain. | ||
| CLCS 251T | Reading Moroccan Culture | Saveau |
| This course examines gender, ethnic, class, family, age, religious relationships within contemporary Morocco. It first provides students with a historical overview of Morocco since its independence in 1956, focusing on the monarchies of Hassan II and Mohammed VI the current king. It explores the power dynamics that exist in a society that is predominantly patrilinear and where gender roles are mostly divided along a binary system; it studies the place of the individual in a society where the collective ego prevails; it considers the place of Berber identity within Moroccan society and finally it explores Sufism as a counter-power to any form of Islamic rigorism. All the themes studied are substantiated with presentations by Moroccan scholars working in the fields of sociology, gender, ethnic, religious, and music studies. (Knowledge of French recommended.) NOTE: This Academic Travel course carries a supplemental fee: CHF 500 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 640 (for students invoiced in USD). | ||
| COM 235T | Food Journalism and Culture (Italy) | Martinisi |
| The importance of food is clear: we eat food to stay alive and thrive. Food, its production, commodification, preparation and consumption is and it has long been a place of cultural formation, negotiation and mediatization. In this sense food journalism plays a crucial role in today's journalism practice around the world in attracting a larger and diversified readership. The course will introduce food through its mediated representation involving journalism but also film, television and the Internet. The topics include the politics of celebrity chefs, food TV shows, restaurant reviews, lifestyle journalism, and other food media's place in the "world of goods". It will also include the social dimensions of food in media by engaging with issues of multinational power, globalization and inequality. The travel component to Italy will include visits to Milan, Parma, and Bologna. This will offer a great opportunity for students to develop insights into the field of food journalism and to experience the excellence of the Italian food with the aim of connecting food texts, culture and writing. | ||
| ECN 105T | Economic Growth & AI (Med Region) | Dianova |
| Recent decades have been characterized by unprecedented rates of economic growth that have brought millions of people across the globe out of poverty. Growth dynamics are likely to change even more rapidly as artificial intelligence (AI) technologies become increasingly sophisticated and integral to the process of production and distribution of goods and services worldwide. However, rapid growth and increasing reliance on sophisticated production technologies come with costs and risks that must be considered alongside the evident benefits. How will the nature of work change in the age of AI? Some professions, production processes and tasks may be, by nature, more resistant to the incursion of technology, raising important questions that society will need to answer in the coming years. What is the future of artists, artisans and tradition in an age of highly-sophisticated technologies capable of replicating creative work at a fraction of the time and cost? Should there be a 'human-made' premium on handcrafted creative output? Should economists focus on alternative measures of growth that give greater weight to quality of output rather than quantity, or to the benefit that such production brings in terms of societal wellbeing? This course will prompt contemplation of these and other important issues. Craftsmanship will be the focus of the week-long Mediterranean Cruise, which will take students to a number of different cities, all of which boast rich histories and traditions of artisanal production. | ||
| ENV 230T | Freshwater Conservation (Italy Slovenia) | Della Croce |
| This course explores various aspects of rivers, freshwater lakes, and groundwater aquifers. It provides an introduction to the distinct ecology of these three freshwater systems, their human uses, different approaches to their conservation, possibilities for restoration of degraded systems, and a look at the role that lakes and rivers play in international relationships. During Academic Travel, the class will visit various freshwater systems and will also practice field data collection techniques. Tentatively, the travel will take place in North-East Italy and Slovenia. This course may also include shorter day-trips to local points of interests. | ||
| HIS 268T | History of Modern Japan | Hoey |
| Following over two centuries of self imposed isolation, Japan was forcibly opened to the west in the 1850s by America's 'black ships'. Since then it has experienced revolutionary changes as its leaders struggled to align Japan with the prevailing trends of the world system. These efforts have had far reaching and lasting consequences for the Japanese people and for Japan's neighbors. This course examines these changes as Japan struggled to catch up with the western powers, to industrialize, build modern systems of administration, establish itself as an imperial power, and later, to recover from the ravages of war and meet the challenges of economic success and stagnation and the ever present danger of natural disaster. This Academic Travel course includes a period of field-research throughout Japan. NOTE: This Academic Travel course carries a supplemental fee: CHF 1?650 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 2,115 (for students invoiced in USD). | ||
| POL 216T | Global Challenges (Vienna) | Bucher |
| To better understand (some of) the major challenges humanity faces today, this course introduces students to the underlying structures and the key actors that shape global relations. As such, this travel course will provide an opportunity to engage with the main building-blocks of the contemporary international order and to inquire into the interactions among states, international organizations and non-governmental actors. Some of the key topics covered in class and on travel include: interstate war, deterrence and contemporary shifts in the nuclear order; the challenges underlying the political need to address energy security, fight climate change, and enable development; and the relationship between human rights, intervention, and state sovereignty. | ||
| POL 228T | Nations and Nationalism (Basque Country) | Strijbis |
| Basque nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today scattered between Spain and France. Since Basque nationalism has developed at the end of the 19th century it clashed with Spanish nationalism and gave rise to a strong independence movement, which culminated in the actions of the terrorist organization ETA. What are nations and why do people identify with these imagined communities? What makes individuals become nationalist? What are the drivers of secessionism and when does it become violent? And how does secessionism impact political systems and individual behavior? In this course, students will learn political science theories that give answers to these questions and apply it to the case of the Basque Country. The academic travel will bring us to various places in the (Spanish) Basque Country that have been central to the development of Basque nationalism including the cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian. On our trip to the Basque Country, we will study Basque nationalism through ethnographic observation, will visit events through which the Basque nation is constructed and celebrated (e.g. folkloric festivals, typical ?Basque? sports, Basque folk and/or punk music), visit expositions on Basque nationalism, and speak to experts of Basque politics. | ||
| POL 231T | The Politics of Organized Crime (Sicily) | Volpi |
| While popular media often depicts Italian criminal organizations through clich?d portrayals in movies and literature, scrutinizing actual data?such as court records, investigative findings, and crime statistics?debunks many long-held beliefs about Italian mafias. This course aims to provide students with a nuanced understanding of these complex criminal networks by dispelling commonly held myths. It delves into the inner workings of Italy's mafia organizations, exploring their unique codes, symbols, and operations in both legitimate and illicit sectors. Additionally, the course investigates the mafias' ties to political and societal institutions. To offer a broader perspective, the course also compares Italian organized crime with its counterparts in other nations. Such comparative analyses will help students differentiate between various forms of organized crime and identify commonalities and variances in their origins and sustainability across different countries. Furthermore, the course encompasses an overview of anti-crime policies and community-led efforts aimed at mitigating the impact and spread of mafia influence in local economies and societies. | ||
| SJS 210T | Sustain Development (Switzerland) | Galli |
| In low-income countries most people are employed, but despite working hard they remain poor. Poor education, inadequate technologies, lack of infrastructure, adverse climate, pay below the living wage, misguided investment and growth strategies are among the causes of low earnings and persistent poverty in low-income countries. In this course, students learn about the challenges of self-employment and wage-employment in rural and urban areas of low-income countries, as well as of formal and informal employment. This course looks at policies and strategies that can be implemented to generate more and better jobs and to help the working poor earn enough to move out of poverty. Students discuss case studies and best practice by non-profit, private, and public stakeholders. Throughout the course students will focus their attention on a specific low-income country of their choice, on which they become ?experts?, enriching class discussions with their acquired country-specific knowledge. The course is framed by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, which calls for promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. Ideally, participants select this course after having taken SJS 100, as a deepening of their knowledge on SDG8. The course includes a travel component to Geneva, to visit the International Labour Organization (ILO) and possibly other institutions in town. | ||
No one-credit courses are scheduled for SPRING 2026.