Pandemic Perspectives from a Student Studying Abroad

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In this episode you’ll hear about: a student’s goal to study abroad during college, how she dealt with unexpected restrictions on becoming an international student during a pandemic, her transatlantic travels, living in a “bubble” in her new dorm, and what she’s hopeful about for her return to her American campus for her senior year.

Our guest is: Emma Halfin, who is a junior at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) majoring in Political Science and History and minoring in French. She is currently a visiting student at the University of Oxford in the UK studying history and politics and is looking forward to returning to CWRU in the fall for her senior year.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality.

Listeners to this episode might be interested in:

• Woollacott, Angela, ‘“Khaki Fever” and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and Sexual Morality on the British Home Front in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 29/2 (1994), pp. 325-347
• Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (2003)
• Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
• Jeanne Boydston, “Gender as a Question of Historical Analysis”, Gender and History 20/3 (2008)
• The Visiting Student Program at the University of Oxford 
• American students studying abroad during the pandemic 
• International Students studying in America during the pandemic 
• The College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University 
• Visa concerns for students studying abroad during the pandemic