Dublin Summer Programs

Dublin Summer Culture Program

May 9 – June 6, 2025

The Dublin Summer Culture Program aims to offer students a unique opportunity to explore Irish culture, history, and community identity through the lens of borders over an immersive summer session, fostering a deeper understanding of culture and politics through engagement with place.

By combining Core 203 and 204, and an active faculty collaboration between the two campuses, an intensive study abroad experience will be created that differs from what is possible during a full semester term at either campus, drawing from the combined knowledge and experience of participating faculty. The program will pioneer a new combined course model that enhances teaching and learning at the college, while also building precedent for future course collaborations between the two campuses.

Offered Courses

Core 203: Making Meaning through Culture
- Exploration of Irish culture and community history via place-based engagements with history.
- Emphasis on The Liberties neighborhood as a case study, and site of community engagement.
- Field experiences, community visits, and on-site research in greater Dublin.
Core 204: Theoretical Perspectives
- Examination of borders at various levels (community, neighborhood, urban, national, international, psychological).
- Analysis of how borders have influenced and continue to influence history, culture and community identity in Ireland and Northern Ireland (post-Brexit), and connections to wider global border issues (US-Mexico, Vermont-Quebec).
- Field visit to Belfast for a deeper understanding of sectarian divisions in West Belfast.

Total Cost: $6,850.00

Includes tuition, housing, international health insurance and some activities. Students are expected to arrive on campus Thursday, May 9 and leave the residence by June 6, 2025.

Who should consider applying?
- Current Champlain students who would like to have first-hand learning experiences that enhance their knowledge of the world.
- Current Champlain College students who are considering or are pursuing a Global Studies Minor.
- Current Champlain students wishing to catch up or take their COR-200 courses in advance and have a lighter load the following spring semester.
- Students in relevant majors at other institutions of higher education who are interested in spending a summer in Dublin and experiencing the culture first-hand.
Prerequisites

Champlain College students: Students interested in the Core 200s program must have completed all core 100 courses by the start date.

Students from other institutions: Minimum of 30 college credits. With your application, please submit a transcript from your home institution.
Payment Deadlines
- Applications are due by February 15, 2025.
- Payment is due by March 1, 2025.
- Special financing options can be negotiated with the Office of Student Accounts.

Instructors

Jonathan Banfill

Assistant Professor

Core Division

Jonathan Banfill

Assistant Professor

Faculty Member	Core Division
Pronouns	He/Him/His
Areas of Expertise	Education Pedagogical Theory, Interdisciplinary Education, Social Sciences Research Methods New & Public Humanities, Digital Humanities, Urban Humanities & Design Humanities Comparative & International Education, Global Studies, Urban Studies, Asia Studies
Contact	Aiken 301

Biography

Dr. Jonathan Banfill is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Core Division at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, where he also directs the Global Studies Minor and the Freeman Foundation Asia Grant. Jonathan’s academic background is in Comparative and International Education, where he holds a PhD from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies. He also holds an MA in Comparative International Politics from American University in Washington, D.C. and a BA in Comparative History from University of Washington, Seattle.

Jonathan’s research and pedagogical practice is engaged in creating interdisciplinary interconnections between new trends in the humanities, social research on global and urban issues, and creative practices from art and design, via place-based and experiential education. He has a long-term interest in thinking about these issues specifically within the context of a transnational Asia-Pacific, but is expanding in more directions since relocating to Vermont. At Champlain, this means creating courses and pedagogical spaces that can combine students’ professional knowledge with a humanistic perspective that can address future changes and global challenges. Jonathan has lived, worked, and taught in places as diverse as Los Angeles, Beijing, Belfast, Pyongyang, Mexico City, Shanghai, Cape Town, and Tokyo.

Jonathan is a graduate of the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative, an interdisciplinary research and training program funded by the Mellon Foundation that brings together humanities scholars, architects, and urban planners to study 21st century issues in cities in the Asia Pacific. He also served as a research and teaching fellow for the program and at cityLAB, an urban research think tank in the UCLA department of Architecture and Urban Design. More recently Jonathan is a co-founder of the Urban Humanities Network, which is supporting a new generation of Urban Humanities scholars and practitioners around the world.

At Champlain, Jonathan is Primary Investigator for a Champlain College subward grant that is part of a larger Vermont EPSCoR proposal organized by The Vermont Complex Systems Center at the University of Vermont. This project, called The Study of Online, Collective Knowledge, and Stories (SOCKS), examines social narratives using Big Data and computational tools. Champlain College’s project focuses on the way that the soundscape has changed in Vermont and how Vermonters have talked about those changes over the last 150 years. Jonathan is a contributing faculty member for a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement (DHAG) grant that will be used to build infrastructure and contribute to faculty’s professional development for Digital Humanities tools. Finally he is a contributing faculty member to an ongoing multi-media research project funded by the Council of Independent Colleges Humanities Research for the Public Good grant that is investigating the history of Urban Renewal in the city of Burlington.

Jonathan is presently helping develop the new major in Digital Humanities at Champain that will start in fall 2024.

Publications & Abstracts

Urban Humanities Pedagogy (2016)

Favorite Quote

“If a scholar stays only in one place, then he or she will know no more than one song, their mind poor and pathetic. He ought to travel widely, observe how people live and how things work, understand customs and cultures across regions, learn of mountains, waters, and meteorology (cosmology), in order to extend their knowhow. This is how scholars are benefited from their experiences.”

—Hu Yuan (993-1059), Northern Song Dynasty Educator speaking about what we would now call interdisciplinary education. I am a descendent of Hu and try to put his ideas into practice in my teaching. Original Chinese quote translated by Dr. Weiling Deng.

Questions?

Contact the Champlain Abroad with any questions about the application process or Dublin campus.

Contact Jonathan Banfill for more information about the program.

Champlain Abroad

Location

Skiff Hall, Suite 200
163 S Willard St, Burlington, VT 05401

*Virtual during the summer and breaks

Office Hours

Monday – Friday
11:00 AM – 4:00 PM