When Alexander Regier first taught Romanticism: Race, Ruins and Revolution at Rice University, it was firmly rooted in texts. Students read about revolutions, ruins and race from a classroom in Houston, an ocean away from the movements that inspired them. But now thanks to the Rice Global Paris Center, Regier was able to teach those same ideas on the very streets where history unfolded.
“This is a very different kind of iteration that has a much clearer connection to Paris,” said Regier, the William Faulkner Professor of English and chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing.
“We’re doing at least one excursion every day.”
The course examined how Enlightenment ideals, political upheaval and artistic movements of the 18th and 19th centuries shaped Europe and how those ideas still resonate. Held over three weeks this summer, the class was grounded in literature, philosophy and art history but used Paris itself as the primary teaching tool.
“That concrete dimension really gives the students the chance to experience hands-on the way in which not just these theoretical ideas structure their lives and their thinking but also how they have an instant real representation around them,” Regier said.
“Suddenly what they do is they take what we’ve explored in class together and apply it to the way in which they experience the city itself and bring that back into the classroom the very next day.”
That loop between theory and lived experience is what makes the program so distinct. Students study revolutionary texts in the morning, then stand at the Place de la Bastille that same afternoon. They read about Romantic-era debates on race and freedom, then walk through the Panthéon, the Louvre or the Assemblée Nationale, examining how those histories are remembered or erased.
“I really wanted to take a deep dive into that world,” said junior Isabella Regan, an English major. “We’ve gotten to go to the places that we are reading about, to see them and then put them in the context of what we’re writing about, what we’re learning in class about these concepts.”
This immersive approach is intentional. From its location in the heart of Le Marais, the Paris Center is designed to support courses that blend academic rigor with cultural exploration. Regier’s class makes full use of that design, often turning the city itself into the syllabus.
“We went into the Louvre and we were there for two hours with the class, then we stayed inside and explored on our own for another two hours,” Regan said. “We were looking at Lady Liberty and all these different paintings that had to do with our class, but after that we got to go on our own and see our own interests outside of what the class is about.
Senior Mia Baumann, a Spanish major on the premed track, said she was initially unsure if a literature course in Paris would fit her academic goals, but she quickly found herself drawn in by the course’s interdisciplinary nature.
“What really surprised me was that it’s more than an English literature class,” she said. “We’re actually going out to like the Louvre and we’re analyzing paintings visually, so it ties into some of the skills that I had acquired from my art history classes. We also talk about philosophy and how we see Romanticism within our daily lives. It really surpassed my expectations.”
Baumann said seeing how revolutionary ideals are etched into the architecture of the city — from monuments to museums — made the ideas feel alive and urgent.
“Once we exit the classroom, we’re seeing this architecture that was built in the 1600s or 1700s and we see how it functions within French society today,” Baumann said. “They alter who gets to be included or venerated in these structures.”
That kind of inquiry is built into the course. Regier restructured his Paris-based syllabus to foreground not only race, revolution and ruins but also issues of gender, then and now. A walking tour led by a feminist historian invited students to challenge the myths they’d absorbed about France’s most storied women.
“The students got an overview of how the history of feminism in Paris intersects with all of the questions that we have discussed in the classroom in the previous week and a half,” Regier said.
“(Our guide) would show us a place and say, ‘So this is what happened. Actually, that’s what you’re told happened. This is the reality of what happened. These are the women that were here,’” Regan said.
Throughout the course, students created podcasts, wrote essays as well as journals and participated in peer-led presentations to explore the lasting impact of Romantic-era ideas. They also created a social media account for the course. But for many, the biggest impact came from the small, personal revelations — those moments when academic themes crossed into daily life.
“In terms of the English Romanticism course, the value that I found in it is that you really are encouraged to think about Romanticism, even out of the classroom,” Baumann said.
The result was a kind of academic transformation, not just in how students thought but in how they moved through the world.
“I’ve grown more independent, I feel, through this experience,” Baumann said, encouraging other Rice students to consider enrolling in courses offered in Paris. “No matter whether you speak French or not, you just have to go for it. There’s really something unique for everyone.”
“Getting to immerse yourself in a different culture is just a really profound experience,” Regan said. “You’re only in your 20s here with Rice for so long.”
For Regier, watching students step into the city’s complexities and make those complexities their own makes teaching in Paris so powerful.
“It’s wonderful and moving to see how effective and deeply transformative it is,” Regier said. “It also makes it all the more fun and productive.”