Summer Schools
Summer Schools in international locations complement the global outlook of our programs at the Transnational American Studies Institute. Interested students enrolled in the American Studies program at Mainz can partake in three different summer school programs:
- The American Studies Summer School (ASSS) “The American South”
- The Institute for World Literature (IWL) Summer School program
- Bread Loaf School of English Summer School
These summer schools offer excellent students the opportunity of working in a completely different environment from their home classrooms and campuses.
American Studies Summer School (ASSS)
“The American South”
The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies annually launches a three-week American Studies Summer School that visits several southern states including Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee. This educational venture from end of July to mid-August offers courses in language, literature, and cultural studies. Starting in Little Rock, AR, and ending in Washington, D.C., the summer school studies the Civil Rights Movement, the History of Food and Music in the American South, and Southern Writers. Students benefit from lectures, readings, and films as well as from on-site learning.
Course credits as well as independent studies credits can be earned.
We hold an information session each December and interview applicants in January. For information on the application process, please visit the annual info session which is announced on the News & Events page and in the Download section on this page. For further information, please see the document in the Download section or contact Julia Velten.
Downloads
- Info Session for 2025 – Dec 16, 2024
- Further Info for 2023 – new info coming soon
Links
The Institute for World Literature (IWL) Summer School program
With its headquarters at Harvard University and partner universities around the globe, this annual, prestigious four-week summer school program is usually held from mid-June to mid-July in a different location each year. The IWL offers intensive seminars and lectures on world literature/comparative literature taught by many of the world’s leading scholars in those fields such as David Damrosch (Harvard University), Homi K. Bhabha (Harvard University), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia University), Paul Giles (University of Sidney), as well as our own professor Alfred Hornung, who was guest lecturer at the institute’s inaugural event at Peking University in 2011. As an institutional affiliate of the IWL, the Transnational American Studies Institute annually receives two guaranteed places for participants at a reduced tuition rate ($900). Applicants preferably are PhD students in the early stage of their doctoral project. However, students in the final stage of their M.A. program or students who have recently completed their M.A. degree and want to further pursue an academic career are also encouraged to apply. Applications for the following year begin December 1 and run through February 1. If you are interested in applying, please contact Prof. Hornung and Prof. Banerjee. Further information on the IWL website.
The Bread Loaf School of English
The Bread Loaf School of English is a summer school program usually held from mid-June to late July. Students in the Bread Loaf program pick one of three American university campuses, at which they take two classes in American or English literature. Courses are taught by lecturers from a variety of American universities of high caliber. German students join the Bread Loaf master’s program for one of its annual summer sessions, bringing them into contact with a generally older group of students. The Bread Loaf program is organized through the International Office. Calls for applications usually are posted early in January in the News & Events section of the Institute’s website. For further information on the program, contact Prof. Banerjee and Prof. Scheiding.