Indiana University offers a four-week English-language summer course in Berlin, taught by Indiana University faculty and tailored to Indiana University students. The city is not merely the setting for the course, but in many ways its key subject. Readings and research assignments—whether about literature, culture, history, or society—come alive in the city. At the same time, the experience of the city itself changes when it is studied intensely. Ideally, two things happen in the course: knowledge originally gleaned from books is lifted off the page, and the buildings and streets of the city are imbued with greater significance.

All classroom meetings (three times a week, 90 minutes each) take place at the IES Center in the heart of Berlin, a technologically sophisticated space that offers students many amenities, including Internet access, printers, library, and helpful staff. The more important learning happens all over the city—at monuments, in museums, along streets, and in train stations. Besides the many planned outings, students have ample opportunity to explore on their own. Everyone receives a pass allowing unlimited use of the public transit system. Students are lodged in a modern hostel, several to a room, in close proximity to the IES Center.