EC EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SUMMER PROGRAMS: Post week 2 Reflection

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Post week 2 Reflection

Week 2 is coming to a close, and yet I feel as though its going by far too quickly. This week has been absolutely incredible in regards to the material that we have learned, and what we have seen! We had three traveling professors talk to us about the Mediterranean and I must say I loved furthering my knowledge on the Middle East. The institute also hosted Cretan night and boy was that fun (I'm sure for anyone watching us dance it much have been a blast). Yesterday was by far our busiest day, having three different sites to visit. The past few days have also been very difficult for me, as my country just had a general election that threw the country onto a path with no end in sight. The conservative party lost its majority, and the Labor party was not even close. Now Theresa May is refusing to step down and is attempting to form a minority government (which is despicable to put it nicely). This is going to make the Brexit negotiations even more difficult, because our government is without strong leadership.
Although the election left me in a panic, yest

erday I did have an amazing experience mostly because of the generosity of the people who taught us about the loom and provided us with a hearty meal (YUM!). Following our experience with those wonderful people and the patriarch of the family who reminded me very much of my late GrandFather (A man who just like him was very patriotic about his country and felt the affect of the second world war) we proceeded to Knossos where a childhood dream of mine was fulfilled. When I was 10 years old my dad and I made a map of places we were going to travel together, Knossos was one of those locations, as was Athens and Cairo (which we visited that summer when I was 10). Although my father was not here with me, I managed to share plenty of pictures with him and finally got to see the location of the mythological Minotaur. I smiled the entirety of the day, and my only wish was that I could see more.
Until next time,
The Honorable, Edward George Bennie

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EC Eastern Security Studies Program

In the summer of 2011, as the "Arab Spring" was unfolding and the "Eurozone Crisis" was entering its second year, the Emmanuel College Eastern Mediterranean Security Studies Program was established in Crete, as a way to make the location the classroom. Beyond the grand theoretical, historical and political understanding that can be achieved through reading and classroom discussion and exchange, a more immediate, intimate and truer appreciation of the complexities can only achieved by experiencing the cultures, languages of personal interaction.

Since 2012 students have been able to combine an intensive curricular study, with the experience of immersion and living in a local setting. The geopolitical and geoeconomic forces that have acted in the region for centuries, can be identified in the classroom, but they can only be understood by being there. This year's EC EMSS Program will add a fourth week of study, experience and exploration and will also travel to the islands of Rhodes, and Cyprus. In Rhodes we will be partnering with the Prefecture of Southern Aegean and the Aegean University, while in Cyprus we will be hosted by the University of Nicosia.