“The Greece Study Tour was by far one of the best experiences in my college career. We visited a variety of historical sites and museums, which are breathtaking when you get to see them in real life. We were led by knowledgeable professors who helped provide a very educational and safe tour of Greece. I would recommend this trip to everyone who asked, and if I had the chance I would go again without a second thought!” — Jessica M., 2010
The 2025 Greece study tour is being proposed for June 3-24. Much information about it is available via the links on the left side of this page (Itinerary, Requirements, Costs & Aid, Materials, etc.).
For those interested (whether for this year or for an upcoming year), some information sessions about the 2025 tour will be held, in Montgomery Hall 101, for 45 minutes or so (join or leave in progress if you have to):
Friday, September 20, 11:45-12:30
Monday, October 21, 11:45-12:30
Tuesday, December 3, 11:30-12:10
A fourth info session will be held during winter break via Zoom: Wednesday, December 18, 1:00 p.m. (ET). We’ll send the Zoom details in an InsideSMCM message starting on December 16.
The 2025 Greece Study Tour will be the fifteenth run by Professor Michael Taber and the third by Professor Inbal Cohen-Taber, offering participants (whether current students at any university, or alumni, or just people who’ve wanted to see this amazing land–we’ve had all of the above) an opportunity to gain a first-hand understanding of the layering of history in this part of the world.
The co-leader, Dr. Inbal Cohen-Taber, has traveled to Greece many times and has lived there for a year.
Both are trained in Greek and Roman Classics, specializing in Philosophy, and with expertise in classical history, literature, religion, politics, languages, and more.
This course will be listed as INTL 330, satisfies the college-wide Cultural Literacy requirement, and can be taken as equivalent to any of the following St. Mary’s courses (4 credit-hours):
English 380–Studies in World Literature
Environmental Studies 380
History 393–Topics in European History
Museum Studies 390–Topics in Museum Studies
Philosophy 380–Topics in Philosophy
Theater, Film, & Media Studies 405–Topics in Performance Studies
Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies 350–Advanced Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
The course can also be used to satisfy the requirements of the Democracy Studies area, in consultation with the Coordinator of Democracy Studies, by using it as equivalent to HIST 393 (which is on the list of DMST-satisfying courses).
How to decide which course to take this as? A student’s major or minor sometimes decides that matter. Apart from that, ask yourself which broad category you’d like to write your 8-12-page term paper on (due on August 1, well after the trip). Which course the student takes this as should determine the content and methodology of the student’s term paper. Where possible, it should also determine the student’s selection of a site paper and site report, and of the two Who’s Who oral reports. After their initial registration, students can change which course they are registered for, even while we are on the study tour, by informing Michael Taber. After all, sometimes one discovers on the study tour new directions for a final paper. Discovery is what study tours are all about.
Because the course is numbered 330, it counts as four credits toward the 44 upper-division (300- or 400-level) credits that are required of all St. Mary’s students, regardless of major.
Students from other institutions should contact Professor Taber to get information from him relevant to getting pre-approval from their home institutions for transfer upon completion.
The course learning outcomes for INTL 330 are that by participating in this course abroad:
- Students will be able to articulate their own cultural values and biases and how these might impact their relationships and collaborations with others. (Personal Awareness)
- Students will observe a new culture first-hand, which will help them to develop an increased capacity to analyze global and local issues with consideration for diverse perspectives. (Global Citizenship)
- Students will gain the confidence and expertise to communicate more effectively and respectfully with diverse groups of people. (Intercultural Competence)
For whom is this study tour right?
We’ve had majors from Anthropology, Art, Art History, Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Education, English, Environmental Studies, Foreign Languages, History, Math, Performing Arts, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Theater, Film, & Media Studies, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
So among the reasons not to consider this trip (“Not into flying”; “Olives scare me”; “Water just shouldn’t be THAT blue”), having a given major is not a good one. Nor is not having that much money stashed under your mattress. See the Costs and Aid page for why you can apply and then cancel without penalty if you find out you didn’t get enough of the College’s dedicated study abroad aid to make it work for you this year.
About the trip
First, for those needing something of an overview of sights in Greece, here’s a 10-minute video by a travel writer–someone named Cody. We’ll be going to some of his “top 8” places, and many other cool sites besides.
A study tour is not simply an off-campus course. Not only do we get to see sites, structures, and landscapes that directly relate to our readings, like those mentioned below, but we learn that our image of Greece must extend beyond silent, weather-worn limestone foundations and pages in literally inanimate books. Greece has lived in dozens of centuries, and is still very much alive.
Greece, like the rest of southern Europe, gets its summer wind prevailing from the south. This means from the Sahara, though cooled some by the Mediterranean. It is hot, with summer highs in the 80’s and 90’s, and in a heat spell, the 100’s. Summer rains are rare, and summer humidity a mere story (myth?) Greeks have heard about. Accordingly, Greeks take seriously the siesta time, which extends from about 1:00 to about 5:00 every afternoon. (The fact that precision is not possible here is part of the charm, and sometimes the frustration, of the land.) Hence, they start their days early, and extend them late. The Greeks consider anything eaten before 9:00 p.m. to be a pre-dinner appetizer.
Napping, however, is but one option for siesta. It is also good time for swimming at an area beach, for catching up on some reading or writing, for strolling to one of the occasional shops or cafes that does not close for siesta. However, this is a credit-bearing academic course. Those interested in three-plus weeks of Greek beaches, punctuated only by gift shopping and evenings in cafés, are advised that this study tour is not for them.
Typical schedule
So a typical day might look like this:
- 7:00 Breakfast in hotel restaurant (provided)
- 8:00 Depart (by foot, by taxis, by bus) to the historical site or museum of the day
- 1:00 Break for lunch either all together or in small groups, after which people can relax, nap, read, write homework assignments, or go in small groups to a local beach
- 6:30 Meet at a pre-arranged location for a seminar
- 9:00 Dinner either all together or in small groups
- 11:00 In small groups, visit a café or stroll the village square
Accommodations
Our long-time Greek travel agents, the Cocconi family at Educational Tours and Cruises, have arranged for us to stay in some memorable inns and hotels, all with standard amenities. See our Itinerary page for more details.
Covid-19 and the study tour
Most of our activities will already be outdoors: our meals, our seminars, our site reports, our visits to archaeological sites. (And those beaches, of course, with the open-air cafes along the boardwalk.) After a crash in tourism in the summers of 2020 and 2021, Greece has had a surge of visitors in the summers of 2022 and and thereafter. The life of travel has resumed–at least in this part of the world. Once our study tour resumed (in 2023), we expected to have to be masked in museums, as well inside other places–though we weren’t, and it was up to the individual to decide whether or not to mask. There was the expectation. however, that everyone’s vaccinations would be up to date.
What if the study tour gets a green light in January (when the first payment is due) but has to be canceled later? Consult the refund policy on the “Costs” page.
The Greek economy
The Greek economy had a shock in 2011, and this has, predictably, been worst for those who are least able to afford any of the cushioning that can soften the effects of any recession anywhere. (Witness the U.S. in 2008.) The Greek unemployment rate peaked at 28% in 2013, and has modestly improved since then—but is still around 10% as of 2024. They still have a ways to go, but their trend lines are going in the right direction.
One element of Greece’s economy the importance of which is agreed on by the likes of the governments of Greece and of Germany, as well as the IMF and the European Central Bank, is that tourism reliably constitutes 15% of Greece’s economy. And no party to the on-going economic negotiations wants to jeopardize that. In fact, tourism has been growing so much since 2015 (excluding the Covid pause in world travel) that our travel agents have had difficulty finding hotels and charter buses to reserve for their study tours from U.S. universities.
Since 2011, I have led many study tours to Greece (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024), and each time we have been warmly welcomed—if anything, even more warmly as their economic doldrums used to drag on. The Greeks are fond of Americans—and not just because of our money. They like our friendliness and lack of pretension. Plus, many of them have at least one family member who lives or has lived in the States.
Refugees migrating through Greece
More than for their economy, Greece was in the news in 2015 for being a popular transit point for refugees and migrants from Turkey, seeking jobs in places like Germany and Sweden. This stopped in 2016 when the European Union struck a deal with Turkey to shut down the illegal migration businesses along the Turkish coast. This is good news for lots of reasons.
Our itinerary for 2025 includes the island of Kythera, which has not been a site of migrants landing. Nor is it as close to Turkey as the islands that have been involved.
Theme – Competition in Antiquity: Athletes, Actors, and Sages
Take any play. Take any short story. Take any thick novel. They are peopled with protagonists and antagonists, as is, one might say, life itself. Protagonists and antagonists are both agonists, and really fat dictionaries will confirm this for you. But what is an agonist?
The classical word agōn (in Greek, αγών) means “contest, struggle.” This is a powerful concept, for three of the major contributions of classical Greece—athletics, drama, speech-making in the law courts and political assemblies—are all examples of agōnes. It is what ties together Medea vs. Jason, Agamemnon vs. Clytemnestra, Odysseus vs. those who would steal his wife and estate, Athens vs. Sparta, Socrates vs. just about everyone, St. Paul vs. those who hold to pagan practices, and all those foot-racers, wrestlers, and discus-throwers. Even more interesting, the agōn is nothing on which the Greeks had a monopoly; it famously has its counterparts elsewhere in the world, as in German (der Kampf) and in Arabic (jihad).
For this word, and the process named by it, to be so long-lived and so widespread, struggle must be multi-dimensional. In our readings and our travels, we will encounter a range of human struggle. We will read of struggles within families (the Oresteia), between warring states (Thucydides), between political dictates and religious principles (Antigone), between legal dictates and a moral mission (Socrates), between cultural realities and a religious mission (Paul), and between an individual’s life and aspirations (Marcus Aurelius). We will visit sites of struggle: a number of theaters and odeons, all four of the pan-Hellenic athletic sites, and the site of Athens’ budding democratic debates and trials.
The meaningfulness of agōn lies not, or at least not exclusively, in winning. The theme of this course, therefore, will not be “Look at all the ways to be a winner and be a loser!” Matters are more complex. Rather, the agōn challenges us to muster determination, to endure, and sometimes even to compromise. The range of these challenges will be the focus of this memorably situated course.