Young Americans who leave their great big homogeneous country and visit some other part of the world typically go through several stages of culture shock: first, dumb wide-eyed astonishment. Then a tentative engagement with the new country's manners, cuisine, public transit systems and toilets, leading to a brief period of fatuous confidence that they are instant experts on the new country. As the visit wears on, homesickness begins to set in, and the traveler begins to appreciate, for the first time, how much he or she took for granted at home. At the same time it begins to seem obvious that many of one's own cultures and traditions are essentially arbitrary, and could have been different; driving on the right side of the road, for example. When the traveler returns home and takes stock of the experience, he or she may have learned a good deal more about America than about the country they went to visit.
Marc Lijour on 26 Jan 11The FTA partners are designing an International Master Programme that will extend the current FTA programme and builds on previous experiences from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Open Universiteit Netherlands, Universitat Rey Juan Carlos and University of Agder. A taskforce has been set up with representatives from these universities and the Free Knowledge Institute.
