<p>Dear Honors College Students,</p>
<p>MIRABILE DICTU! (That’s Latin for WOW!) There are still seats
available in the superb Alabama at Oxford Program if you act fast (this
week or early next week) during Second Term Summer 2011. From July 3
to August 4 the UK is where you want to be! There are two incredibly
wonderful honors offerings: UH 210 Honors Fine Arts: The Arts of
Oxford (Allen Jones) and EN 216 Honors English Literature 2 (Bob
Halli—that’s me). Both of these courses fulfill Honors and Core
requirements. </p>
<p>UH 210 provides 3 of the 18 honors hours for the UHP, 3 of the 6 UH
hours for the UHP, 3 of the 12 hours in humanities and fine arts for
the core, and the 3 hours of fine arts for the core. EN 216 provides 3
of the 18 honors hours for the UHP, 3 of the 12 hours of humanities and
fine arts for the core, and the 3 hours of literature for the core. </p>
<p>“The Arts of Oxford” includes literature (Phillip Pullman, Lewis
Carroll), architecture ancient and new, art (you’ll love the Pre-
Raphaelites), science (see Einstein’s chalkboard), baroque music in
baroque chapels, Shakespeare in college gardens, pub food and high tea,
and many tours of sights and sites (walk in the footsteps of J.R.R.
Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll and Alice, Emma Watson, Oscar Wilde,
Christopher Wren, and the Oxford Martyrs). If you have taken UH 210
once already, you can take it again in Oxford.</p>
<p>“English Literature 2” provides a survey from 1800 to the present,
concentrating where possible on Oxford authors (Oscar Wilde, W. H.
Auden), works about Oxford (Matthew Arnold’s “Thyrsis” and “Scholar
Gypsy,” the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy’s <em>Jude the
Obscure</em>), and works written in Oxford (W. B. Yeats’s “The Second
Coming,” T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”). The
course begins with a short novel whose opening scene is set in our
college.</p>
<p>Worcester College, our home, is gorgeous. Some buildings date to the
Middle Ages and it’s the only college with a lake and with its own
athletic facilities on-site! Each student has a private room with bath
and we take meals in the Great Hall. Oxford itself is wonderful, full
of history and charm, but with all the modern conveniences. We are one
hour by train from London. The word used most frequently by students
to describe their experience in the program is “magical.”</p>
<p>Take a look at the official brochure on the program, which is found at:
[Capstone</a> International Academic Program Blog Archive Oxford](<a href=“http://international.ua.edu/programs/newsite/oxford-]Capstone”>http://international.ua.edu/programs/newsite/oxford-)
honorsenglishhistory/ There are four non-honors courses to be offered
in summer 2011: HY 300 Social History in a Vow, HY 300 The Rise and
Fall of the First British Empire, EN 311 British South Asian Literature
and Culture, and EN 333 Shakespeare. These are all described in detail
in the brochure, and their instructors have indicated their willingness
to do “honors-by-contract” in them if you would like to turn them into
honors courses.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the program, please email Ms. Holly Buckner,
Director of Capstone International Academic Programs, to learn more
about the program or to sign up (<a href=“mailto:hhbuckner@ua.edu”>hhbuckner@ua.edu</a>). Please cc me on
your emails to Capstone. If you have questions for me, please
email me back. I have included here a list of wildly enthusiastic
students who have taken one or both courses in the last three summers
and who have said they would be happy to correspond with students
interested in going in 2011.</p>
<p>I hope you will be with us in historic, contemporary, beautiful and
vibrant Oxford, England, in five months!</p>
Terrible, sometimes…</p>