The Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) announced this year’s Overseas Seminars Thursday, marking a significant step in the program’s return after a two-year hiatus.

The seminars are short-term study abroad options that will be offered in summer of 2012.

Five three-week classes are currently scheduled for this year: “Rio de Janeiro: A Cultural History” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; “Minority as Cultural Form in South Asia” in New Delhi and Mumbai, India; “The Amsterdam Trans-Idiomatic Arts Practicum” in Amsterdam, Netherlands; “Issues of Development in Northern Tanzania” in Arusha, Tanzania and “History, Memory and Global Experience in the Eastern Mediterranean” in Istanbul, Turkey. The seminar in Istanbul will mark the University’s first study-abroad venture in the Middle East.

Student enrollment is capped at 15 per trip, and the $600 price tag for each seminar includes housing and food, although students must cover their own transportation. The program is intended to give students who cannot spend an entire quarter abroad an opportunity to study in a different country. All undergraduate students will be eligible.

Detailed course descriptions are scheduled to be posted on BOSP’s website during the week of Nov. 28, and seminar applications will be due on Jan. 29. Financial aid will be available to qualifying students.

The BOSP seminar program offered 10 classes at its height; however, the program was put on hold following the 2008-2009 academic year as a result of the economic crisis and University-wide cuts. The overseas seminars were originally cut because it was the “easiest and most viable way” to meet the budget, said former BOSP director and history professor, Norman Naimark in a previous interview with The Daily.

– Brendan O’Byrne