Amherst College Global Education Blog
During the 20-minute break in my 3-hour Soviet Cinema class, I catch Professor Dvinatina for a quick question. After a couple minutes of discussion about how well Petersburg About Love (2016) captures the state of the modern Russian film industry, she elegantly responds, “Dasha, it’s lovely to talk to you, but I really need to smoke right now.” Which is
Read more
“Do you eat to live, or live to eat?” I was asked by Amy, an American ‘casualty’ of her 1970s Study Abroad program that I mentioned in a previous post. Amy currently lives with her husband, an Italian, at La Comune di Bagnaia, a commune about 30 minutes outside of Siena where I stayed for two weeks as part of my
Read more
Petersburg’s cold air comprises of poetic verses and brush strokes. That’s not quite so apparent when struggling with closing an umbrella while opening up the door to a coffee shop’s warm pastry atmosphere. The efficient cashier raises his eyes as I shrug my wet hoodie from my head and try to order that weird M-something untranslatable-berry–flavored latte on the almost-gone
Read more
During the first three weeks here in Siena, the curriculum was centered around an intensive Italian language course on which we spent three hours a day, usually from 10 am-1 pm. In the afternoons, we’d alternate between viewing Italian films, exploring the city of Siena with our encyclopedic tour guide-cum-teacher Roberto, or having introductory classes to our courses for the
Read more
First Impression Despite its fame as the number one tourist spot in the world, Paris has a much relaxed vibe than I expected. I was born and raised in one of the busiest cities in the world, in which everything has to be automatic, fast, and user-friendly. I had an expectation that most other big cities would be similar, which
Read more
CW: Anxiety On September 1st, 2016, I sat at a long dinner table at Fattoria San Donato, a family run vineyard/”agriturismo” on the rural outskirts of San Gimignano, Italy, rapidly bouncing my leg up and down while playing Titus Andronicus loudly in my head, as I often do when I feel anxious. It was my first dinner with the people
Read more
My name is Darya Bor – Class of 2018, Film & Media Studies major, studying abroad with the Bard-Smolny Program in St. Petersburg. I was born in Minsk, Belarus, grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and decided to return to my Russian roots for my study abroad experience. At Amherst, I worked in the Mead Art Museum as an Education
Read more
Ciao, readers! My name is Brian, I’m a 2018 Black Studies major from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This fall, I’ll be studying sustainability at the Siena School for Liberal Arts in Siena, Italy, in the hopes of learning a food anthropology framework to apply to the racialization of American food systems. I’m excited to challenge myself with this journey
Read more
Hello everyone! My name is Ho Yean Choi, class of 2018 double majoring in Political Science and French. This fall I will attend l’Université Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, looking forward to see the differences between discourses and pedagogy in Paris and that of Amherst. As coming to Amherst from Seoul was the first journey of my life, living
Read more
Arriving in Argentina, I was unsure of how my racial identity would affect my experience. I perceived my time abroad as a break from microaggressions: the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward marginalized groups, and racism and discrimination more generally. More profoundly
Read more