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Summer in Argentina

Argentine Study Abroad Program Poster

Emory Argentine Studies Program 2020

Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 30 - July 14, 2020

The Emory Summer Program in Buenos Aires provides students with an understanding of Latin America and its cities using Buenos Aires as a model. By creating the opportunity to live in Buenos Aires, the program immerses students in the culture of one of the most vibrant, cosmopolitan, and diverse urban centers in South America. Students gain a vivid understanding of the specifics of Spanish American societies as they enter into a learning experience in which the academic aspect of the program dovetails with the student’s day-to-day life in the city.

The format of the program follows a two-pronged approach in which theory and practice intersect, thereby refining the quality of learning outcomes that cultural immersion experiences often afford to its participants. In the mornings, students typically attend their classes. In the afternoons, Emory faculty lead a wide array of guided activities throughout the city.

In this way, students first learn from program faculty in every classroom session, and then participate in cultural excursions outside of the classroom designed to complement in-class content by directly coming into contact with what is happening every day in the city. This philosophy of taking the class to the real world gives students invaluable hands-on experience, its goal being allowing students to reflect on the interaction between the course content and what they see in Buenos Aires.

By interacting with Emory faculty and Argentina-based scholars, students experience multiple registers across the Spanish language in its academic variant. This student-centered pedagogical approach is further supplemented by the students’ daily contact with their Argentine host families and friends, who help students improve their fluency in the informal Spanish normally spoken in Buenos Aires.

Track 1 - Language, Culture and Society

8 Credit Hours

(This track fulfills the HAL requirement)

Courses and activities in this track are designed for students wishing to develop or perfect their ability to use Spanish for communicative purposes. Students on this program take language, literature and culture courses at the 200 level (Spanish 212) and at the 300 level (Spanish 309). In addition, students are enrolled in a cutting-edge course designed to expose participants to on-site cultural activities taking place across the city (Spanish 319). These three courses expose students to multiple registers of the Spanish language that help them hone their spoken, written, and aural skills in significant ways.

Students interact with instructors who are native English speakers specialized in Argentine culture and trained to teach Spanish as a second language. Students also interact with the Director of the program, a Buenos Aires native who holds extensive experience teaching Spanish American literature and history to American students. Instructors lead on-site cultural activities that furnishes students with first-hand access to the many cultural manifestations currently going on in the city of Buenos Aires. .

Sharing their daily experiences with Argentine host families allows students to partake in customs that shape daily life in Buenos Aires, such as drinking "mate", cooking an "asado" successfully, sharing long "sobremesas" after a meal, and joining in a vibrant night life with their multiple cultural offerings for people of all ages and backgrounds. A preeminent multicultural metropolis, Buenos Aires has been an immigration destination for European, Latin American, and Asian people over the past 200 years.

By completing this track, students fulfill Emory’s HAL Requirement.

Courses

SPAN 212: Argentine Language, Culture and Society.
SPAN 309: Buenos Aires, Past and Present.
SPAN 319: Urban Culture as a Lived Experience.

Track 2 - Human Rights in Argentina

8 Credit Hours

This track allows students to learn about the vibrant history of human rights struggles in Argentina with an emphasis on the current emergence of new disputes and social conflicts that are giving birth to new social and political rights. Spanish 385 engages students in theoretical class discussions focused on social, economic and political issues that influence Argentina's current vision of human rights. As a historical point of departure, students are guided through the political and armed conflicts that took place in the country during the last presidency of Juan Domingo Perón and the ensuing military dictatorship spanning between 1976 and 1983. Students enrolled in this track also take Spanish 309, a course dealing with urban history and culture that provides students with the necessary background to further understand the context in which the concept of human rights has developed across multiple sectors of Argentine society. To extend in-class instruction to the level of praxis, students are also enrolled in Spanish 319, a cutting-edge course designed to expose participants to on-site cultural activities taking place across the city.

As an integral part of this track, students participate in guided visits to former illegal detention centers that are now museums devoted the to memory of the disappeared during Argentina’s last military dictatorship. The three classes of this track expose students to different aspects of the history of the Mothers of the Disappeared (Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and their long-standing struggle against impunity. In the context of class discussion and field trips, students also become familiarized with the fluctuating public policies that have been implemented since the inception of democracy in 1983, when the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) was formed to investigate the disappearance of thousands of people. Though high ranking officers were tried and condemned for crimes against humanity in 1985, they were later pardoned by a general amnesty during the presidential administration of Carlos Menem. The Human Rights track also tackles the emergence of Kirchnersim in 2003 (first with Néstor Kirchner, and later with current President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) and the annulment of the amnesty laws by the Supreme Court of Justice, which led to a vast array of trials and incarcerations over the past ten years. Essential to this line of inquiry are the children of disappeared parents who were illegally appropriated by military officers and later illegally adopted by families connected with the military forces. Many of these children, now in their thirties, were able to recover their identity and become acquainted with their true life history by consulting the DNA banks maintained by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

Students of this track will also study the ways in which the scope of human rights extend to present-day debates and struggles that seek to grant equality to multiple sectors of Argentine society that extend beyond the bloodshed of the 1970s. Some of these alternative paths of intellectual inquiry include the emergence of LGTB struggles in the 1980s, and the Equal Marriage Act (Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario) passed by the Argentine Congress in 2010. Other issues involve the precarious situation of the Indigenous peoples in Argentina, as well as the pervasive discrimination that still exists against immigrants from neighboring countries. Courses in this track also explore debates on women and gender rights, including the Gender Identity Act (Ley de Identidad de Género) passed in 2012, which enables individuals to register the name and gender of their choice. Taking these courses will allow students to learn about the ongoing political discussions dealing with policies aimed at guaranteeing full legal protection to disabled individuals (personas con capacidades especiales), as well as preserving the rights of children, adolescents, and elders in Argentina.

Courses

Spanish 385: Human Rights in Argentina.
Spanish 309: Buenos Aires, Past and Present.
Spanish 319: Urban Culture as a Lived Experience.

Track 3 - Medicine and Global Health

8 Credit Hours

This track exposes students to the overarching problem of how mind and body are conceived under different intellectual lenses. Students are enrolled in Spanish 460, a course dealing with the circulation of medical discourse, and how the concepts of health and illness shape Argentine society and its institutions. In-class instruction is complemented with visits to hospitals, clinics, as well as public and private health agencies.

Students also take Spanish 385, where they learn about the daily practice of medicine in Argentina by means of theoretical class sessions and hands-on experiences taking place in various medical institutions in Buenos Aires and its surroundings. This course engages students in class discussions focused on social, economic and political issues that influence Argentina's current vision of global health. Classes deal with basic concepts of internal medicine, anatomy, physiology, prevalent diseases in the region, and the history of the health sciences in Argentina. Students are also introduced to the most current literature that addresses the clash between social, political, and financial interests that have been shaping health care public policy in Argentina since the inception of the welfare state in 1945. As part of this seminar, Argentine physicians guide students in the application of those theoretical principles under real-life conditions, via interactive experiences with medical school residents and patients of public and private medical institutions across the city of Buenos Aires.

While in-class instruction is of the essence, a student's full comprehension of how differing understandings of mind and body may occur requires exposure to the local conditions in which these ideas circulate. To fulfill this end, afternoons are devoted to Spanish 319, a series of cultural activities in which students have first-hand access to the myriad of political, social, and cultural manifestations going on in the city of Buenos Aires. In taking these three classes together, students learn about the cultural and social conditions of the city that intersect on a daily basis with approaches to the problem of mental and physical health, frequently influenced by the role that the State takes on in steering public health care policy-making across the country.

In acquiring an overarching exposure to the inner workings of the field of medicine and psychoanalysis in one of the foremost urban centers of Latin America, students learn how Argentine professionals are trained to examine mental and physical ailments. Furthermore, and most fundamentally, these experiences help students garner a heightened cultural and professional awareness that will furnish their intellectual profile with a distinctive set of qualities. These are the critical and practical skills that will set students apart in their future careers as health care professionals in the context of emerging challenges and demands posed by an increasingly globalized world.

Courses

Spanish 485: Culture, Society, and Medical Discourse.
Spanish 385: Medicine and Global Health in Argentina.
Spanish 319: Urban Culture as a Lived Experience.

Program Activities/Excursions

The program will include a variety of cultural activities: film, theater, concerts, sports events, and visits to cultural sites and museums.Trips may include:

  • City Tour
  • Day Ranch in the Pampas
  • Day Boat Trip to Uruguay
  • Day in the Tigre's islands

Eligibility

This program is open to Emory and non-Emory students. It is also open to all majors.

Normally, you should have a minimum 3.0 GPA. If your GPA is below 3.0, you can apply and request a waiver.

If you are an intermediate-level student enrolling in the Track on Language, Culture and Society, you need to have completed one year of high school Spanish or one semester of college Spanish, or you can request special permission from the Program Director to participate.

If you are an advanced student enrolling in the Track on Human Rights or the Track on Medicine and Global Health, you need to have completed Spanish 202, or you need to request permission to enroll in these tracks from the Program Director.

All students must (1) be at least 18 years old, (2) be in good academic standing, (3) have completed a full year of college, and (4) currently be enrolled at a college/university.

Costs and financial aid

The cost structure of the program is formed by two elements: tuition and operational costs. The tuition reflects the 8 credit hours that students earn by meeting the learning objectives of the program. The operational costs reflect the cost of Emory health insurance plus the particularities of Buenos Aires's cost of living, including room and board.

2020 Fees:

Academic Fee: $10.616
Room, Board, and Insurance: $2,650

Total: $13,266

 

Students who receive financial aid during the school year are also eligible for financial aid during the summer. Contact your financial aid advisor to get a specific quote for your financial aid package.

 

Contact Kate Dawson (kate.dawson@emory.edu) at Emory College Study Abroad for information about a variety of summer scholarships, including the Gillman Scholarship for students who receive Pell Grants, and the Wendy Lowenstein-Sandler Grant for those who have not previously traveled abroad.

 

 

Application deadlines and procedures

You can complete your online application starting December 15, 2019. We will be accepting applications on a rolling basis and you will normally be notified with results within two weeks after submitting your completed application. But remember: the final deadline is February 15, 2020!!!.

Keep in mind that the Office of International and Summer Programs encourages students to submit applications as early as possible because some programs fill up by the end of January. Admittance to this program will be based on your application date, your GPA, your application essay, and class availability.

You need to complete your application through the OISP website. Click on the button below, and start your application!

Faculty and contact information

General administrative questions (application process, fees, tuition, financial aid, enrollment, etc.)

Kate Dawson, Study Abroad Advisor
OISP, Office of International and Summer Programs
Candler Library, Suite 200
550 Asbury Circle
Emory Univeristy
Phone: 404-727-7884
E-mail: kate.dawson@emory.edu

Academic and scheduling questions (courses, activities, field trips, etc.)

Prof. Hernán Feldman, Program Director
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
N510 Callaway Center
537 Kilgo Circle
Emory Univeristy
Phone: 404-727-6529
E-mail: feldman@emory.edu

 

Faculty

Hernán Feldman

Program Director, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Emory University.

Jennifer Feldman

Program Faculty, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Emory University