Franklin Hall 303 Bloomington IN 47405 812.855.9304

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Program may be available in future; please return to this site for information.

Beyond Beaches, Baseball, and Bachata: Dominican Identity in the Age of Globalization

• The Dominican Republic is a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean, known for its beautiful beaches, its rich history, its archaeological significance, and its fascination with baseball.
  
• Santo Domingo, the capital city, is the oldest European settlement in the New World, a city with great music, museums, restaurants, and cultural attractions.
  
• Santiago, a wealthy city of one million inhabitants, is located in the Cibao Valley, and sits at the heart of the leather, rum, and tobacco industries.
  

TENTATIVE TRAVEL DATES

• 3 weeks in early summer

PROGRAM ORGANIZATION

• 10-15 IU students
• One-month program (early May to early June) with
  • One week of orientation and class meetings at IUB
  • 21-day study tour to the Dominican Republic
  • Final debriefing meetings at IUB
• IU resident co-directors:
  • Iris Rosa, Director of the African American Dance Company and Associate Professor of African American African Diaspora Studies
  • Emily Maguire, Assistant Professor of Spanish & Portuguese
• Matthew Guterl, Director of IU American Studies Program, will accompany group as program advisor

ACADEMIC CREDIT

• Total of 6 academic credits.

• Undergraduate Students:
  • 6 credits AAAD-OS 300 (AH)*,
  • 6 credits AMST-A 397 (AH),
  • 6 credits LATS-OS 300 (AH)*,
  • 3 credits of AAAD-OS 300 or 3 credits of AMST-A 397 AND 3 credits of HISP-S 317**, or
  • 3 credits of HISP-S 317 AND 3 credits of HISP-S 495**
  *Note: -OS 100 (-OS 300) is the default designation to identify courses recorded as 100-level (300-level) undistributed credit that can count in total hours toward graduation and may be able to satisfy major, minor, or distributional requirements with the approval of participant’s school.
  **Students with appropriate language backgrounds (see eligibility criteria below) can pursue Spanish credit. Program content and assignments will be in Spanish.
  
  
• Graduate Students:
  • 6 credits AAAD-OS 500*,
  • 6 credits AMST-A 697,
  • 3 credits of AAAD-OS 500 or 3 credits AMST-A 697 AND 3 credits of HISP-S 695**
  *Note: -OS 100 (-OS 300) is the default designation to identify courses recorded as 100-level (300-level) undistributed credit that can count in total hours toward graduation and may be able to satisfy major, minor, or distributional requirements with the approval of participant’s school.
  **Students with appropriate language backgrounds (see eligibility criteria below) can pursue Spanish credit. Program content and assignments will be in Spanish.

ACADEMIC PROGRAM

• After one week of intensive background reading, discussion, and orientation, the class will depart for San Juan, Puerto Rico, for a few days prior to arrival in Santo Domingo, the base of operations for nearly three weeks. Sites are rich with museums, centers, local historical organizations, and public spaces where race and national identity are studied and performed. Program goal is to take advantage of the institutional resources of the country without losing the chance at ethnographic and critical cultural studies fieldwork. Each day on site, will include several hours of formal or informal course related content (e.g., a trip to a museum with an address by a curator), carefully structured group fieldwork or observation supervised by a faculty member, and mediated group discussion.
• Students will receive guided tours of: the Casa de Africa, the Zona Colonial, the Museum of the Dominican Man, the first Cathedral of the Americas, the National Film Institute, the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Fundación León Museum and Cultural Center, the Boca Chica resort, the Museum of Modern Art, the Casa del Son and, if possible, the New York Mets baseball facility.
• Lectures for the class on Dominican history, literature, and culture will be offered by faculty from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. Students will also have many opportunities to meet with local artists, musicians, and writers.
• The local liaison and guide for the program is Ms. Aurora Arias, the author of two books of poetry, Vivienda de pájaros (1987) and Piano lila (1994), and two books of short stories, Invi’s paradise (1998) and Fin de mundo (2000). A third collection of short stories, Emoticons, is forthcoming from Editorial Terranova (San Juan, PR) in Fall 2006. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, and is included in the anthologies Sin otro profeta que su canto; Juego de imágenes: la novísima poesía dominicana, and Señales de voces: antología de cuentos dominicanos. Her work has been translated into Italian, German, and English. Arias has also worked in journalism, serving as an editor of the cultural periodical Quehaceres. She currently resides in Santo Domingo, where she is at work on a novel, Papeles de Andrómeda.

ELIGIBILITY

You may apply if you

• are an IU degree candidate who is making normal academic progress,
• are in at least your fourth full-time semester of college,
• are willing to live and travel with a group, and
• have approximately a 3.0 cumulative GPA.

Students seeking Spanish credit must also
• have completed or be enrolled in at least fifth-semester Spanish or the equivalent, and
• have attained at least a B average in Spanish.

HOUSING

• Shared hotel accommodations

ESTIMATED 2007 COSTS

• Fee paid to IU (includes tuition, housing, some meals, excursions, health insurance)
  • IU resident undergraduates $2,917 $2,250
    
  • IU non-resident undergraduates $3,417 $2,550
    
    
  • IU resident graduate students $2,917
    
  • IU non-resident graduate students $3,417
    Initial prepayment of $500 due March 5. 
• Additional meals $400
• Airfare $900-$1100
  Personal expenses additional.

FINANCIAL AID

• Overseas Study Scholarships, including Minority Scholarships and Scholarships for Students from IU campuses other than Bloomington.
• Some participants may qualify for student loans.
• With departmental authorization, IU graduate students may apply fee remissions to program costs.
• Find general information about financial aid and links to additional scholarship opportunities here: www.indiana.edu/~overseas/basics/finaid.shtml.

APPLICATION DEADLINE

To be determined

Electronic notification of application status sent within three weeks of application deadline.

How to Apply for this Program

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See the Dominican Identity Program Handbook for more details about the program.
The handbook is in Adobe PDF format. If you don't already have it, .

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Last updated: December 10, 2007
Comments: overseas@indiana.edu

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