Academics
The challenging course of study introduces students first hand to the style of education that Oxford has made famous. The distinctiveness of the Oxford tutorial system lies in the small intimate meetings of students with their tutors and the opportunity to attend lectures by distinguished academics from other Oxford Colleges. While students attend seminar meetings, the central part of the student's work lies in meetings with the tutor. Each course requires one substantial paper per week. The tutors, all of them experienced Oxford faculty, understand how to introduce students to this unique approach to learning. In addition to enrolling in one of the five courses described below, students are required to attend seven (7) lectures in the Exeter College summer lecture series on topics in the Humanities, Social Science and History, and to contribute to discussion of these lectures on a Duke Blackboard site.
Courses
Students enrolled in the summer Duke in Oxford program may choose one of the following double-credit courses. Minimum enrollment in each course is six students. Courses with fewer than six will be cancelled and students will be placed into their next available course choice.
ENGLISH 132CS - 01 (Area I)/ MEDREN 132AS - 01 Topics in Renaissance British Literature: Shakespeare: Comic Visions, Dark Worlds (ALP). This course considers Shakespeare’s writing from his earliest works to the late plays. We will address concerns that persist throughout his work (political authority, sexual and amatory conflict, the ambivalence of language), as well as trying to become attentive to the ways in which his writing changes over time. A particular focus will be the relationship between Shakespeare’s work and the world in which he lived and wrote. Approaches take into account Renaissance attitudes, modern critical perspectives, the implications of changing textual scholarship and questions of staging. Two course credits. C-L: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 132AS
ENGLISH 132ES - 02 (Area II) Topics in Nineteenth-Century British Victorian Literature (ALP). This course will identify the characteristic features of Victorian fiction and poetry, both thematic and formal. Among the themes traced through will be preoccupation with guilt and loss, the impact of class and gender on destiny, and the contemporary concern for moral growth. Among the formal properties examined will be the effects of serialization and the development of the dramatic monologue. The texts studied will be doubly contextualized – read in the light of modern criticism, but also referred to the matrix of Victorian cultural conditions. Two course credits.
POLSCI 100LS - 01 [B] CCI, SS / HISTORY 100MS - 01 Political System of Modern Britain (CCI, CZ). This course will cover key aspects of British History from 1945 to the present. The bias of the course will be political, but other themes, economic, social and cultural, will be introduced as essential to a full understanding of the nature of British politics and society as the nation approaches the turn of the century. Students will have a chance to study the development of the major political parties, the changing nature of the British economy and the question of British “decline,” the retreat from Empire and the subsequent controversies over Commonwealth immigration, the nature of British “national identity” and the related theme of racism in Britain, and the issue of Britain’s relationship with Europe and the evolving European Union. C-L: International Comparative Studies. Two course credits.
PHIL 184S/ POLSCI 185S/Classical and Contemporary Political Philosophy (SS, EI). A study of the moral basis of government authority from Hobbes and Locke through J.S. Mill, Rawls and Nozick, comparing alternative contractarian, natural law, utilitarian, Kantian and libertarian theories of the scope and limits of permissible government coercion. Two course credits.
PHILOSOPHY 185S / RELIGION 161WS/ PUB POL 138S Science, Ethics, and Society (CZ, EI). This course will examine some of the major recent public debates involving science, ethics, and policy in Britain and the United States. The intent will be to better understand why a variety of issues ranging from stem cell research and global warming to health care policy and the teaching of evolution are often framed quite differently in the two countries. Specifically, we will not only examine the scientific, philosophical, and theological dimensions of such controversies, but how their manifestations in the public realm illuminate the relationships between scientists and laypersons, academic and popular culture, and public attitudes towards government and regulation. Two course credits.
Guest Lectures
Five guest lectures will be given by academic staff of the University of Oxford and by experts
from outside the University. There will be an opportunity for participants to meet the speaker at
the reception before the Guest Night Dinner; students will also be invited in turn to join the staff
of the school, the guest lecturer and other guests at High Table.
Requirements & Prerequisites
Students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0. Preference will be given to students who have taken at least one course in the area in which they intend to study at Oxford. The tutorial format of the course is supplemented by the lectures given by noted British scholars.
In each of these double courses the student works under the direction of a tutor who is normally a faculty member at Oxford University. Course participants receive Duke credit and letter grades for the double-credit upper level courses. Neither auditing, nor the pass/fail option is permitted. Given the intense nature of this program, late arrival and/or early departure is not permitted.
