Literature and Culture
On the Literature and Culture tour students explore and experience how human identity is a vibrant, multilayered, and ongoing project that we not just study as history but participate in creating in our own lives. As the most culturally and ethnically diverse region of Mainland China, Yunnan will be an ideal place to take students eager to explore how human societies have created diverse and intersecting identities and ways of expressing these. Our study tour will immerse us in the material culture of the region – vernacular architecture, fine arts, food, and the aesthetics of the everyday– where we will be able to experience with all five senses unique presentations of identity and diversity. Students will be staying at the Linden Centre in Xizhou, which will be our base as we explore historical, religious and cultural sites across Dali, Weibaoshan, Zhoucheng, and Shibaoshan. A meticulously restored, nationally protected heritage site, the Linden Centre itself has historical connection and cultural preservation at the core of its own mission.
