Courtney M. Dorroll (ed.) - Teaching Islamic Studies in the Age of ISIS, Islamophobia, and the Internet

Table of Contents

T HE VIRTUAL EXCHANGE GIVES TANGIBLE examples of how new media approaches can be used in the classroom. Two of us, Courtney M. Dorroll and Kimberly Hall, teach Middle Eastern studies courses that focus on aspects of Islam at Wofford College, a small liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Doaa Baumi teaches students at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. We have connected the students at Wofford virtually with students at Al-Azhar University and with Jedidiah Andersons Wofford Introduction to Arabic students at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon; the virtual exchange was a two way project where we worked to connect Wofford students to the American University of Beirut and Wofford students with Al Azhar University. Initially, we created the virtual exchange in order to place US undergraduate students in a space where they could hear from Muslim practitioners firsthand through the use of new media platforms. In recent years, we have linked our students by working together on a virtual exchange where students use Facebook, Skype, WordPress blogs, and other digital media platforms and software to facilitate interaction between the American South, Cairo, and Beirut.

A virtual exchange is valuable in a multitude of classroom settings, as we will illustrate, because it offers students the opportunity to connect with their peers through a variety of online activities. The goal is to help students learn about one another and build trust among themselves, both within the classroom and across cultures. By scaffolding the virtual exchange with a series of reflective activities, we prepare students for the exchange by fostering an understanding of themselves as embedded in a specific cultural context that can be translated for an intercultural audience. We will offer several examples of activities that we have used to develop this perspective. After the initial activities, the virtual exchange takes place via Skype sessions that provide a safe channel for students to discuss topics on religion and culture as a result of the work they have done prior to the virtual exchange. Many different college classroom settings use virtual exchanges because of their benefits, but in this chapter we offer a model for establishing a virtual exchange between Muslim and non-Muslim practitioners in order to foster cross-cultural and cross-religious engagement. We utilize the Association of American Colleges & Universities rubric on Intercultural Knowledge and Competence to assess our students growth in intercultural knowledge on completion of the virtual exchange.

M OTIVATION

One of the important motivations for this project was to further cultural understanding between the United States and the Middle East. Many of the students from both Al-Azhar and Wofford have never met followers of other religions. Al-Azhar, located in central Cairo, is one of the oldest Sunni Muslim universities in the Islamic World. The fact that Al-Azhar offers free education (starting from elementary school up to and including undergraduate education) encourages many Egyptians, particularly those who come from rural areas, to join. Many of those students are media targets for conservative Salafi channels. Due to the students lack of exposure and interest in other religious faiths, teaching in the Department of Comparative Religions is quite challenging for instructors. Many of the students are not really interested in joining this department, and they believe there is no need to explore other religions or to learn about them. Yet, the majority of the students who do join the department think that learning about other religions is only crucial as an avenue to convert people to Islam.

The curriculum also has a great impact on students understanding of knowing the Other. Because Al-Azhar students of religion only know about other traditions in theory, they do not understand the significant subdivisions that exist within each religious tradition. Furthermore, they do not realize how culture affects and influences different religious practices. For instance, many Al-Azhar students do not know how Christians who live in the United States are different from those living in Europe. In addition, many of the students who join the Department of Comparative Religions do not have a good understanding of the religious diversity within the United States or within the US Christian tradition. When asked about their motivations to learn about other traditions, Al-Azhar students offer a variety of answers. Many are interested in classical Islamic history and the former coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims during the medieval period. Yet these students realize that they cannot relate the historical harmony and what they read about to the current division in religious cultures and world politics. Others are more interested in learning about the historical theological debates that have existed and continued to take place between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Another important factor that makes Egypt a prime location for this exchange program is the complexity of the MuslimChristian relations in the country. Despite the fact that there is a high percentage of Christians living in Egyptabout 10 percentMuslimChristian relations in Egypt are still precarious. Surprisingly, it is abnormal for average Muslims and average Christians within the Egyptian context to initiate any conversation involving religion. Both Muslims and Christians feel vulnerable asking each other questions about religion. The situation is the same for the students who study comparative religions, meaning that these same tensions and concerns are also mapped onto the academic setting.

US students also face similar gaps in their knowledge of the Other. Wofford College is a Christian Methodist institution. Many Wofford students have never been to the Middle East; their only exposure to Islam and Muslims happens through the news. There are a few students who are Muslims and who are in the Muslim Student Association on campus. Many of them are second-generation immigrants. As a result of their upbringing in the United States, as well as the fact that they speak English as their native language, they are quite dissimilar from Middle Eastern Muslims who appear on the US news. For instance, all the female Muslim students on campus except one international student do not wear the veil, whereas in Egypt most Muslim women do. Therefore, introducing Muslims from the Middle East to Wofford students enables them to gain a more well-rounded understanding of Islam in all its diversity.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) is a private, secular institution in Beirut, Lebanon. The university was chartered in New York in 1863 and is based on the American liberal arts model of higher education. AUB is similar to Wofford in that it is a private institution based on the liberal arts pedagogical approach and both institutions are conducted in English.

E NGAGING THE V IRTUAL C ONTEXT

Much of the literature on the use and impact of virtual exchanges in the undergraduate classroom comes from the field of intercultural studies, rather than digital media studies. This is surprising given the prevalence of interest in both implementing innovative teaching by way of technology, as is often cited in the Digital Humanities, and a theoretical interest in virtuality as a concept and construct. Both of these definitions figure largely in the pedagogical foundations of a virtual exchange. By using technology to illustrate to students that the horizon of knowledge operates in extension of the classroom, the virtual space becomes an intellectual bridge between everyday life and the structured spaces of learning. Similarly, Hayless insistence on both the cultural and informational dynamics of the virtual emphasizes that perception is a construct shaped by both the cultural and technological environments in which one is placed. Although neither of these scholars addresses virtual learning environments specifically, these definitions point to the important interfaces between theoretical conceptions of the virtual and its implementation in a pedagogical environment.