The core of the program is the two semesters of graduate school during which students live together and work with half a dozen faculty around a common theme. Other programs fit in and around these, with short-term events and a dozen or so seminars each year. On offer this summer are Religious Dreams and Symbols, Armenian Spirituality, and Post-Colonial Hermeneutics. Shared Living as Learning Both the shared living and the study are part of Bossey s unique learning experience. The students do not all speak the same language.
Classes happen in French and English, with simultaneous translation.
For many students, of course, neither tongue is a first language, so much extracurricular activity is carried out in ecumenical French and ecumenical English. Mealtimes provide their own challenges. The food is pretty solidly European. Even when they have adjusted to the food, there are still table manners. In the classroom, students are challenged to articulate their own traditions in ways they would never have to in either a denominational school or in a multiconfessional school in their own countries.