Service Learning, Civic Engagement, and the Medieval Studies Classroom
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Elizabeth Harper
Organizer Affiliation
Mercer Univ.
Presider Name
Elizabeth Harper
Paper Title 1
Learning in Lock-up: Teaching the Honors Medieval World Class in a Men's Prison
Presenter 1 Name
Karen Taylor
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Morehead State Univ.
Paper Title 2
Service Learning, Social Justice, and the Wife of Bath
Presenter 2 Name
Alexandra Verini
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of California-Los Angeles
Paper Title 3
Going Viking as Service-Learning
Presenter 3 Name
F. Tyler Sergent
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Berea College
Start Date
12-5-2017 10:00 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1330
Description
This session will explore ways to teach the Middle Ages using service learning, civically-engaged learning, internships, and other means of connecting social and ethical problems in the Middle Ages with problems of our own day. This is an important topic because service learning and civic engagement are increasingly prominent pedagogies at the college level, appealing as they do to Millennials’ sense of public service and desire to see practical outcomes to their learning. It is also important because of the widespread perception that “medieval” is a synonym for “outdated” or “irrelevant”—a perception that medievalists know is simply false, but which frequently works to marginalize our work.
Papers in this session will describe past experiences teaching the Middle Ages in ways that highlight their connection to modern ethical issues using service learning and other forms of practical inquiry. Such issues might include, but are not limited to, issues of poverty; religious or ethnic persecution including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; inequality based on gender, sex, or sexual orientation; war and peace; community-building and conflict. The recent volume Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice highlights many such connections.
In keeping with the practical focus of this session, presenters will offer a complete syllabus, an assignment sequence, or other concrete elements that audience members can adapt for their own contexts. Materials may be uploaded to Dropbox to facilitate sharing.
Elizabeth Harper
Service Learning, Civic Engagement, and the Medieval Studies Classroom
Schneider 1330
This session will explore ways to teach the Middle Ages using service learning, civically-engaged learning, internships, and other means of connecting social and ethical problems in the Middle Ages with problems of our own day. This is an important topic because service learning and civic engagement are increasingly prominent pedagogies at the college level, appealing as they do to Millennials’ sense of public service and desire to see practical outcomes to their learning. It is also important because of the widespread perception that “medieval” is a synonym for “outdated” or “irrelevant”—a perception that medievalists know is simply false, but which frequently works to marginalize our work.
Papers in this session will describe past experiences teaching the Middle Ages in ways that highlight their connection to modern ethical issues using service learning and other forms of practical inquiry. Such issues might include, but are not limited to, issues of poverty; religious or ethnic persecution including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; inequality based on gender, sex, or sexual orientation; war and peace; community-building and conflict. The recent volume Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice highlights many such connections.
In keeping with the practical focus of this session, presenters will offer a complete syllabus, an assignment sequence, or other concrete elements that audience members can adapt for their own contexts. Materials may be uploaded to Dropbox to facilitate sharing.
Elizabeth Harper