Making Place: Tourism, Culture & Global Communication
2009 Exploration Seminar in Switzerland
THIS PROGRAM IS FULL AND NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS. PLEASE CONSIDER ANOTHER EXPLORATION SEMINAR PROGRAM!
Program Director: Crispin Thurlow, Communication
Dates of Instruction: 22 June – 18 July, 2009
NOTE THAT THIS PROGRAM IS A SUMMER (A Term) AND NOT AN EARLY FALL PROGRAM: This affects how credit, payments and financial aid are handled. Please click here for information.
This Exploration Seminar will help you understand some of the human consequences of globalization by studying the important role communication plays in tourism as a global cultural industry. As the world’s single largest trade, tourism is a powerful factor in shaping everyday interpersonal, intercultural and inter-national communication. Nowhere is this more apparent than Switzerland – the birth place of modern tourism and a country which embodies the challenges and successes of multilingualism, multi-culturalism and multinationalism. Since the 1850s, Switzerland and especially Interlaken (our base for the seminar) have organized and promoted themselves as the quintessential tourist destinations. It was actually between June 26 and July 15 in 1863 that Thomas Cook organized the first ever organized tour of Switzerland. And, in the face of global warming, European/EU politics, and international economics, this “production of place” is also being constantly revised.
 The seminar will be an enjoyable learning-by-doing experience and you’ll be involved in a series of practical projects involving different theoretical issues and key research skills (e.g. visual ethnography, text analysis). In doing so, you’ll be examining the linguistic, visual, material and spatial strategies used to represent and promote Swizterland as a global tourist destination. You’ll also study how visitors and local people interact in tourist sites. It’s in this way that the seminar will address the darker side of tourism as well, by considering how the making of place and the production of culture always overlook many areas of life. So, for example, one assignment will have you undertaking “counter tourism” in Geneva, following non-touristic routes through this global diplomatic city and developing an alternative tour-guide script. Through a series of fieldtrips, hands-on projects, and guest speakers you’ll be asked to evaluate critically the implications of tourism for human communication on both a local scale and a global one.
Pre-progam requirements
There are no course prerequisites for this seminar. However, once accepted you will be required to attend three pre-program class meetings in the Spring quarter (March 12, May 14, June 11) as well as a social gathering (April 16). These will entail a very basic crash-course in Bärndütsch (the local dialect of Swiss German), a graded reading quiz and a preliminary assignment (also graded). Failure to attend the three class sessions may mean losing your place in the program.
Credit
In taking this Exploration Seminar, you will earn five credits in COM 322 Global Communication plus one (1) credit of GEN ST 392. You should check with your advisors to determine how these credits can count towards your own departmental requirements.
About the Instructors
Crispin Thurlow, the program director, was born and raised in England, before living for twelve years in South Africa, eight years in London and six years in Wales. He moved to the USA five years ago and is currently a professor in the UW’s Department of Communication. In 2007, he received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award. As the teaching assistant for this seminar, Ms Kristine Mroczek brings both a professional and academic knowledge of the tourism industry. Her graduate research is rooted in intercultural communication, discourse analysis and visual communication.
Student costs:
Your additional costs: round-trip fare to Zurich/Geneva, health insurance, personal spending money, any visa-related costs for non-US/non-EU passport holders, general meals.
Reviews from 2008 students:
- Andy Dean (Communication) I had no idea how much I would change and grow as a person from just one month in Switzerland. This trip, the class and the experience I had on it will stay with me the rest of my life and I know they have changed me and made me a better person because of it.
- Deanna Sonni (International Studies) I loved feeling like I was backstage and seeing something completly average but which was unique to me because I was seeing a hidden part of Switzerland that no other tourist would be seeing.
- Emily Eggers (Communication) I think what impacted me the most about this seminar was that it made me realize how applicable my major is to the real world. I am so accustomed to being in the classroom, listening to a lecture or participating in a discussion section, and have never had the chance to actually be immersed in the subject that I am studying.
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