Project Investigator: Pheroze Unwalla
Project Description
In MES300 The Middle East: Critical Questions & Debates, students examine the troubled history of Middle East Studies (MES) and then work to
decolonize and resituate the field within a social justice framework. This project evaluates the impact of emotion(ality) in MES300 and beyond. In
particular, it assesses the transformative potential of classroom emotion(ality) and emotive writing on students’ ability to a) …produce inclusive and just visions of the Middle East and MES; b) upend inequitable academic conventions and modes of expression; c) attend to emotional wellbeing in courses with traumatic subject matter (and in fraught times more generally).
Project Questions:
How does the incorporation of classroom emotion(ality) and emotive writing assignments, impact student engagement with the Middle East and Middle East Studies? How does it impact students’ understanding of academia, academic conventions, and modes of expression? To what extent and in what ways does an embrace of classroom emotion(ality) impact students’ emotional wellbeing in the MES classroom, other courses that deal with violence and/or traumatic subject matter, and in these trying times more generally? Do these impacts differ based on whether students have personal/familial stakes in the course subject matter?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
The project aims to: 1) Enhance MES300 and the MES program’s mission to be student-centered, transformative, and girded by a commitment to social justice. 2) Provide guidance on the impact of emotionality and emotive writing assignments in MES and other fields/programs at UBC and beyond 3) Serve as a basis for a larger interdisciplinary SOTL project on the critical role of emotionality in the classroom, particularly for students’ emotional wellbeing. This is particularly significant given the pandemic and its known impacts. 4) Generate SOTL scholarship that will be presented and published in MES and SOTL fora to impact both fields.