Structure of BSAO

BSAO operates in a way unlike much of American higher education in that its various courses and activities are designed to interconnect and interrelate. Although each seminar is assigned to a particular discipline, the program’s objective is to be as interdisciplinary as possible and to encourage participants to perceive and create links among all the things they study and encounter.

Credit

All the seminars are offered by Rhodes College and carry 4 credits. Students from other colleges and universities transfer these credits in the usual way.

Grades

Participants receive letter grades: A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc. Courses cannot be taken Pass/Fail or audited.

Cycle of concentration

Each year BSAO selects a particular period of British history and culture on which to concentrate, running on a four-year cycle:

Britain in the Renaissance;
Britain in the Ages of Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism;
Empire and After: Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; and
Early and Medieval Britain: From the Roman Britain to the Coming of the Tudors.

Seminars

Within that period a wide range of seminar courses is offered; there are usually between 20 and 25 seminars to choose among. These seminars in a variety of humanities and social science disciplines, almost always including the following: Art History; English; History; Music; Political Science; and Religious Studies.

All students take two seminars, one chosen from a group offered at 8:30 AM, one from a group offered at 11:15 am.

The seminars meet for one hour a day, on 18 days during the period of the summer school. With a single exception (see Additional Seminar below), all teaching takes place in the morning.

Lectures

As well as attending the two seminars, all participants attend a Plenary lecture held between the two seminars. These lectures are given either by our own teaching faculty or by a visiting British scholar. The lectures address topics of general interest within the period being studied. There are also a wide range of study excursions, again closely linked to topics being studied, offered during the week and at weekends. No additional charge is made for these.

Additional seminar

Students may apply to join a third, additional seminar (this cannot be substituted for one of the other seminars): “Shakespeare: Page & Stage”. Students taking this additional seminar undertake a study of five Shakespeare plays which are seen in major professional productions, usually in Stratford-upon-Avon, London, or Oxford.

The pattern of the day

Here is the pattern of the day’s set events:

8:00 AM Breakfast

8:30 AM Seminar 1

9:30 AM Coffee

10:00 AM Plenary lecture

11:15 AM Seminar 2

12:30 PM Lunch

1:15 PM Additional seminar

7:00 PM Dinner

The pattern of the teaching week

The usual pattern of teaching days is as follows (there are occasional variations):

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6

T,W,Th,F M,T,Th M,T,W,Th M,T,Th M,T,Th,F Exams Sun, M