Book History in a Global Frame: China & U.S.

Project summary:

• Students at DePaul and Fudan participated in several linked activities about book and printing history, analytic bibliography, and editing during this virtual exchange project. Of special interest in this link was Emily Dickinson, approached from two different directions by the two classes: the Fudan class worked on translation issues in translating her poems into Chinese; the DePaul students researched the complicated history of editing those poems from Dickinson’s hand up to the present day. Students discussed readings online asynchronously via WeChat on their phones, following discussion prompts supplied by the faculty members. There was also a synchronous Zoom videoconference class, during which DePaul students presented work to Fudan students. Fudan students asked questions, and some sent short essays to the DePaul students via WeChat and email. The students in the two classes had different goals from their engagement with the literary material: translation for the Chinese students, historical argument for the DePaul students.

Project length:

• 6 weeks

Technology tools used:

• Zoom, WeChat, PowerPoint

Interaction Mode:

• Synchronous
• Asynchronous

Learning outcomes:

• Students learned from and gained respect for the perspectives of others different from themselves.
  
• Students gained knowledge of global interconnectedness and interdependencies.
  
• Students applied a range of methods of literary criticism in order to produce coherent and adequately supported interpretive analyses of literary works.
  

Reflection component:

• After the synchronous meeting, and at the end of the quarter, students were asked about their feedback on the GLE interaction with another class, and about the technology used.

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