Pack your Pascal

October 12, 2023

Why is fall a good time for students to think about Xavier’s Study Abroad programs? This is a question CAS posed to me in asking me to offer a blog post for the college’s weekly Bulletin. It’s true that some of my best teaching experiences over the past twenty years at Xavier have happened outside of the classroom, on study abroad programs. The phrase “study abroad” is intended to distinguish it from mere tourism. Travelling abroad opens students to education because the experience forces one to confront something strange or unexpected, contrary to one’s beliefs.
 
As Pico Iyer writes: “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.” The main obstacle to such an experience is our natural tendency to travel with our beliefs and prejudices, which prevent us from seeing what is truly strange and different about our destination. Instead, we look for experiences that confirm our strongly held beliefs. There are several ways to avoid this pitfall, including learning the language of the citizens and developing friendship with the local citizens. Such things help encourage open, far-reaching conversations.
 
But there is another important way to facilitate study abroad that I learned from Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville spent barely nine months in America and yet managed to write perhaps the most penetrating account of the American soul. How did he do it? Tocqueville writes in a letter to his friend, Louis Kergolay, that he didn’t travel alone in America, but spent “a little time each day” with Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. In other words, these thinkers guided him and taught him to see more clearly what he did not initially notice by himself. The greatest authors open our eyes (and our minds) by directing us to the most difficult and perplexing and questions. The most effective way to study abroad is to first study.
 
Dr. Steven Frankel
Professor, Philosophy Department

Photo by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash