"Studying" Abroad

Seeing as this whole London experience is officially called "study abroad," its probably about time that I mention a little more about my classes. Although all this fun stuff I am doing is definitely another type of learning. I feel like have learned so much about British history and culture in my short time here, just from all the sightseeing and exploring I've been doing. But there has in fact been learning going on in the classroom as well.
I am taking four classes, in addition to my internship, which counts as an American Studies class. Everyone here in the ND Program has to take a class called Images of Britain Through the Arts, which fulfills the university fine art requirement. I had originally thought that this class would just be a boring requirement, but it is actually pretty interesting. We have a six-week seminar class where we learn about general British culture through film, paintings, literature, drama, and music. We watched the movie "The Queen" with Helen Mirren for the seminar class, a really good movie. It showed us the conflicting views of the monarchy in Britain. It is a respected and honored tradition that sometimes is out of touch with the feelings and beliefs of the public. And the guy that played Tony Blair was also in New Moon, in case you were wondering. I spent the majority of the movie trying to figure out where I had seen him before. Thank goodness for imdb.com.
In addition to the seminar, we take two electives. I was really silly when I made my schedule and picked two elective that meet on Fridays, which means I have Friday class all semester and therefore am much more limited in my weekend travel options. But so far it is turning out great, because I really like my first elective. It's the Portrayal of Royalty class that I've mentioned a few times before and I just love how we get to go see all of the art and paintings we are learning about in person. And I never knew that such tiny details in paintings can actually be the artist's way of making a political statement or conveying the power of a monarch. My second elective is Intro to London Theatre, where we basically go see different plays and musicals on Tuesday nights and then discuss them in Friday class. So I'm thinking I won't be regretting that class choice either, despite the travel limitations.
I'm finishing up my anthropology minor with my Archaeology and Ethics class, which is also really interesting. Last week we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and wrote a paper about whether or not Indiana Jones is an ethical archaeologist (for the record, he's not, but he means well, haha). This week we discussed the effect of looting and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the many historical artifacts and museums in the Middle East. We discuss so many current, pertinent issues, which keeps us all interested.
Since I'm an American Studies major, there aren't too many classes over here in London that help me fulfill those requirements, so I'm finishing up the rest of my university and Arts and Letters (Leisure?) requirements. I'm taking Christianity and Islam as my second theo requirement. It is an absolutely fascinating topic, especially here in Britain where there is a significant Muslim population, and what with the current state of affairs in the Middle East. We even get to go to visit a Mosque at some point during the semester, which I am really looking forward to. The lectures in this class aren't the best, but that probably has something to do with the fact that the class lasts almost three hours on Tuesday afternoons. And because our professor has a tendency to just use words in Arabic and then not write them on the board or give us any indication about how they are spelled. So sometimes that is a struggle, but all the reading is really interesting.
My fourth class fulfills my literature requirement, and is called London Writers. We read different novels, poems, and short stories either set in London or written by someone who lived in London (if you couldn't tell that from the title...). I love that I am getting to know the city enough that I recognize the places that the characters in all the stories are talking about or going to, and it really helps me paint a picture of the action in my mind. My favorite text so far has been Sherlock Holmes--I loved Arthur Conan Doyle's writing style, it was such a page turner.

See? I really am doing homework here. At least occasionally.