The Writing Seminars > Undergraduate > Summer Program in Rome

The Rome program offers both new and experienced writers a chance to spend five weeks in Italy, making an artistic exploration of the Eternal City that inspired Keats, Shelley, Goethe, and, more recently, Jhumpa Lahiri: the city of which E.M. Forster wrote, in Where Angels Fear to Tread, “In Rome one had simply to sit still and feel.” 

student smiling with a book in front of the Vatican museum, with a crowd
a crowd in the dark in front of a movie projected outdoors
three students at Hadrian's villa in Tivoli, standing at a railing with Italian trees, brush, and desert hills behind them

Program Focus

Students are welcome to work in prose, poetry, or both. Though the emphasis of this program is on the creation of new work rather than on critique and revision, students participate in a multi-genre workshop, where they will receive feedback both from their classmates and from Writing Seminars faculty member James Arthur. Students also enroll in a second class of their choice at John Cabot University, where they can study the Italian language or take an English-language class in other subjects including literature, history, art history, and philosophy.

Throughout their time in Rome, students keep journals of observations that act as a catalyst for their creative work. They will have many opportunities to explore Rome both independently and through class excursions to such sites as the Pantheon, the Forum, the Vatican Museums, and the Villa Borghese.

All participants in the program are registered as summer students at John Cabot University and have access to housing just off campus, in the historic neighborhood of Trastevere.

a group selfie of seven students in a museum gallery with oil paintings in the background
a white statue of a woman reaching up into the air and a man holding her up
two students having a pasta dinner in Trastevere

Program Prerequisites:

  • AS.220.105: Introduction to Fiction and Poetry I
  • GPA of 3.0 or higher

For more details, please see the website of the Global Education Office.

Student Testimonials

Charlotte Egginton

Rome Program 2023
. . . My creativity was sparked in a way that it hadn’t been before, which I attribute in half to the immersion into a new culture, but also to James Arthur’s incredible instruction. [click to read more about Charlotte's experience in Rome]

Iris Lee

Rome Program 2023
. . . No one in Rome, nor in Baltimore or Seoul, needed to know what I was doing. I was free of cultural context and therefore free to observe context. I think that’s partly why I liked guessing at everyone’s lives on the street, just as we guessed at...