14 Penn Global Seminars for spring 2025 to include new travel sites in Brazil, Bulgaria, Malawi

Penn Abroad will offer 14 Penn Global Seminar courses for the spring 2025 term, featuring new program sites including Brazil, Bulgaria, and Malawi.

Penn Global Seminars are semester-long courses that combine classroom learning on campus with short-term international travel experiences, typically during spring break or at the end of the semester. The PGS courses offered for the spring semester will take students across five continents and cover a variety of disciplines, from international relations to sustainability to cultural studies.

One of the new offerings, "Global Aging — Challenges and Opportunities," taught by sociology professor Iliana Kohler, will travel to Malawi. The course explores the global phenomenon of population aging as a a demographic, social, and economic challenge. Students will explore how aging impacts countries in different ways, with a special focus on the distinct challenges faced by middle- and low-income nations, such as when rapid population growth and aging intersect. 

“Students will have the opportunity to really hear and learn how researchers in Malawi and Sub-Saharan Africa think about global aging, what they see as challenges and opportunities from their context,” Kohler said.

For those interested in language and cultural studies, "Perspectives in Afro-Luso-Brazilian Culture," taught by lecturers Mercia Flannery and Carlos Pio and offered in both Portuguese and English, will travel to Minas Gerais, Brazil. The course will delve into the history and influence of Portuguese colonization, Afro-Brazilian culture, and the ongoing conversations around race, language, and art in Brazil and other Lusophone countries, including former Portuguese colonies in Africa.

“The course provides the students with a broader understanding of what happened in Brazil and in other countries that received Portuguese influence,” Flannery said. 

Another new course, "European Foreign and Security Policy in Times of Crisis," led by International Relations professor Valeriya Kamenova, will travel to Bulgaria. The course provides a comprehensive examination of Europe's evolving foreign and security policies, particularly in light of current issues such as the Russo-Ukrainian war, migration, cybersecurity issues, and climate change. Moreover, the course will review the processes behind the European Union’s response to international challenges, including peacekeeping missions, migrant coordination mechanisms, EU-NATO relations, and more. 

In addition to the new programs, other Penn Global Seminars for spring 2025 will travel to destinations including Egypt, Japan, the Netherlands, India, Mexico, and more. Returning classes from previous years include "Cairo as Palimpsest," "Mongolian Civilization: Nomadic and Sedentary," and "People of the Land: Indigeneity and Politics in Argentina and Chile." 

Financial aid may be applied to the flat $950 program fee, and applications for the spring 2025 PGS will be open during advance registration from Oct.1 28 through Nov. 11.