Oberlin-in-London Program
Fall 2027 London Program
Curriculum
Led by Professors Skeehan (English) and Hoffmann-Dilloway (Anthropology), the 2027 London Program, “Evolving London: Ways of Knowing a Changing World,” offers a sensory, place, and object-based “field guide” to the city through the lens of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. We will explore the what and who went into the making of one of the most influential works of the last 170+ years as well as how evolutionary science influenced literature, popular culture, as well as a wide range of academic disciplines. Students will take a team-taught course titled, “Behind the Scenes with Darwin’s Taxidermist,” which will explore hands-on the material, visual, literary, socio-political and epistemological practices behind Darwin’s work, paired with either Skeehan’s course focusing on science fiction before and after Darwin or Hoffman-Dilloway’s graphic anthropology course, each of which offers additional insights into ways of knowing that produced and were produced by Origin.
Students will also select a course taught by on-site faculty: “The London Stage” or “The History of London” serve as excellent complements to the other offerings, providing expert context to our explorations.
Faculty
Danielle Skeehan, English
I love an immersive experience and am thrilled to teach nineteenth-century science fiction in London. For those of you who know me, you know I’m obsessed with Mary Shelley lore. I’m excited to revisit familiar texts such as Frankenstein in new settings and contexts and to use the city as our classroom. Much of the work we will be thinking about is central to my newest book project about literature, migration, and decolonial futures and our adventures will feature in the book. I can’t wait to think through my ideas with the students who join us, as I’ve always found that Oberlin students are fantastic intellectual interlocutors when I’m puzzling through challenging research questions. My research for this book in progress has taken me to a range of sites already, including Alaska and Hawaii, but London will be the most important centerpiece of my engagement with migration studies. I’m likewise thrilled to work with Professor Hoffmann-Dilloway as we design our immersive experiential team taught course which will definitely take us off the beaten track and invite us all to experience the “weirder” side of London!
More about Danielle Skeehan
Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway, Anthropology
Every time I’ve had the pleasure of visiting London I’ve been torn between a desire to lose myself in the rich sensory complexity of the cityscape and an urge to capture and preserve the experience somehow. As I’ve discovered when leading summer workshops in Graphic Anthropology in Malta, sketching offers a way to mediate both ways of engaging the world, as drawing not only provides a way to record scenes but also affords a platform for participating in them. I can’t wait to see how graphic methods can reflect and affect the relationships students and I will form with new people, animals, and places in the city! I’m also delighted to work with Professor Skeehan in framing Darwin’s Origin of Species as both an entry point to learning about London and experiencing London as a way to better understand this work, which is foundational to my field of Anthropology as well as many other disciplines. Professor Skeehan and I both have a pedagogical commitment to experiential, creative, multimodal, and interdisciplinary learning and London provides a really rich canvas for us to design enriching, place-centered activities through which we can all learn together.
More about Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway