Last month, the UChicago Study Abroad Office announced seven new study abroad opportunities for the 2026–27 academic year. These programs include Cambodia: History, Tragedy and Renewal; London: Theorizing the Present; Paris and Its World Fairs: 19th and Early 20th-Century Expositions Universelles; Paris: Machine Learning for Networked Systems; and Sydney: Colonization, Health, and the Environment (all scheduled for September 2026 with an application deadline of February 9), as well as Paris: Visual Arts, and a direct enrollment program at Cardiff University (both set for Autumn 2026, with March 30 and January 3 application deadlines, respectively).
Dana Currier, the deputy director of the Study Abroad Office, told the Maroon that the new opportunities would help meet high demand for September Term programs, which cover one course in three weeks.
The Sydney and Cambodia programs are UChicago’s first offerings in Oceania and Southeast Asia, respectively, according to Currier.
Sydney: Colonization, Health, and the Environment “will explore the historical and current implications of colonialism in the city,” according to the Study Abroad website.
“Sydney offers a compelling case study for examining colonial history,” said Christopher Kindell, the program’s faculty director and an assistant instructional professor in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization.
“As a global seaport that rapidly developed during the long 19th century, it served as both a site of British imperial experimentation and a crucial node in Pacific World networks of trade, migration, and disease transmission.”
Cambodia: History, Tragedy, and Renewal, designed by anthropology professor Alan Kolata, will evaluate Khmer history through readings, discussions, and an exploration of various archaeological and historical sites across Cambodia.
“Students interested in the historical and contemporary contexts of social, cultural, and environmental change and economic development in the Global South will find the course particularly intriguing,” Currier said.
The three new Paris programs will take place at UChicago’s John W. Boyer Center in Paris. With these new programs, the Boyer Center will now have 32 unique study abroad opportunities.
UChicago is also expanding its study abroad programming in the United Kingdom, with its new Cardiff University and London: Theorizing the Present programs. With these new programs, the University now offers 13 study abroad opportunities in the United Kingdom.
The Cardiff University program is a direct enrollment program, allowing students to study for either the autumn quarter or for the entire academic year at Cardiff University.
Daragh Grant, a senior lecturer in social sciences and the faculty director for London: Theorizing the Present, said the program “will invite students to interrogate systems of power and value, to propose methods and frameworks for making sense of recent events and ongoing transformations.”
Allyson Nadia Field, a cinema and media studies professor who will teach the course for the program this year, explained that the class will explore the ways that speculative thinking is used as a creative technique in Black British cinema.
“The course will focus on speculation as a key practice in contemporary Black British cinema, looking at artists who reimagine history in their negotiation of archival absences, silences, and erasures in the wake of empire,” Field said.
