Engaging Students with the Humanities Online
Wendy Swartz, Rutgers University
Distant learning during the Covid-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges in terms of technology and pedagogy. My presentation will focus on ideas for engaging students online with the humanities and will draw from my experience teaching a Rutgers Signature Course entitled “Heroism.” This undergraduate core curriculum lecture course offers students a global and comparative examination of different conceptions of heroism in history and literature across cultures, time, and gender. To navigate successfully through 21st century demands, such as determining human values, morals, and ethics in a world that is increasingly mechanized and polarized, it is more useful than ever to learn about both the past and other cultures to understand what unites us as human beings. In particular, by examining heroism from a historicizing, multicultural, and gendered perspective, students can with greater power and awareness view their choices and determine their actions as global citizens in the 21st century.