The City of Mannheim: Base of Operations
The city of Mannheim, located in the Rhine river valley in the historic Palatinate, is close to the medieval city of Heidelberg– home of one of the oldest German universities (founded 1386). It is close to the ancient Roman limes and the former imperial cities of Worms and Speyer, and it provides easy access to a wealth of cultural resources that will be 
explored in program field trips. Students will be able to travel regionally on their own with their VRN regional transportation ticket (which is included in the program).
Much larger than the Palace at Versailles that inspired it, the Palace of Mannheim — belonging to the Prince Electors of the Palatinate — and the nearby summer palace at Schwetzingen are testimonies to the “Age of Absolutism” that followed upon the confessional conflict of the Reformation.
Within a generation of the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the poet Friedrich Schiller and Ludwig van Beethoven articulated an artistic vision of the unity of peoples: “The Ode to Joy.” The “Ode to Joy” was adopted as the anthem of the European Union in 1972.
MEMS in Mannheim
. . . provides students with knowledge about the rich cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire and the ways in which this history continues to shape contemporary understandings of Europe.
Weekly field trips in MEM 3730 include excursions to:
- The Roman and early Christian buildings and ruins of Trier, the first “Holy Roman Empire” north of the Alps, where the Roman Emperor Constantine reigned.
- Aachen, seat of Charlemagne and the Carolingian dynasty and site of their early medieval Christian renovatio of the Roman imperial idea.
- The imperial city of Speyer and the Cistercian monastery at Maulbronn, UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Nuremberg, with its imperial castle and the Nazi parade grounds to the southeast of town. Here the Holy Roman Empire and Hitler’s infamous Third Reich intersect.
- Martin Luther sites and the medieval Jewish Cemetery in the medieval old city of Worms on the river Rhine.
- Palaces from the Age of Absolutism in Mannheim and its vicinity (in Heidelberg, Schwetzingen).
- Strasbourg, free imperial city in nearby France, home of a spectacular Gothic cathedral that points to the heavenly kingdom and of the parliament buildings of the present-day European Union that point to the politics of the future.