Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2019
Abstract
In the Fall of 2017, first year liberal arts students at Community College and second year Masters’ Students in literature at a university in Morocco collaborated in an online and live conversation focusing on the novel Horses of God (Les Etoiles de Sidi Moumen) written by Mahi Binebine. The novel describes the lives of four childhood friends growing up in a slum near Casablanca, navigating poverty and purposelessness and being drawn to religious fundamentalism. Students in the two colleges engaged in an online discussion on Facebook and live Google Hangouts exchange in which they shared questions about the novel. Moroccan students provided cultural context for the novel and American students discovered important connections to their own lives. Their contrasting life experiences generated unexpected common ground: an acknowledgement of difference and a shared ethical awareness of ways literature can interrogate political extremism.
Included in
French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons
Comments
Originally published in Ikhtilaf, Journal of Critical Humanities and Social Studies, vol. 1, iss. 2, Spring-Fall 2019.