This program uses Berlin as a case study for an immersive field research project focused on the quality of life in Europe. You will begin by comparing communist, totalitarian East Berlin with countercultural, multicultural West Berlin during the decades when the Berlin Wall divided them. You will then turn to the city’s dramatic modernization since German reunification and its role today as the capital of the largest democracy in Europe. Along the way, we will take a side trip to Vienna, which is often ranked as the world’s most livable city. German-speaking Europe boasts some of highest measures of human development found anywhere, and we want to explore why.

Summer 2026