It always seems to be an interesting time to teach my course on China and the Islamic Middle East, one of several courses that students can take in the Global and Historical Studies part of the core curriculum at Butler University. Last semester there were protests in Hong Kong. This semester there was a virus that seems to have originated in Wuhan. Of course, we tend to focus on major players and regions in courses like these, and there will always be something important happening in such a part of the world.
In response, I suggested to the students that their final projects (working together to create websites about the parts of the world we were studying and their intersection with an area of personal or vocational interest to them) focus on the pandemic in these places. Here are links to the websites my students created. I hope you enjoy exploring them.
Covid-19 in China and the Middle East
Journalism in China and the Middle East
Religion in China and the Middle East in the Era of Covid-19
An Evaluation of Covid-19 with China and Islam
If you want to trace how their thinking has developed over the semester, and some of the great ways they connected this core course with their major, their family and other life experience, and much else, take a look at the course blog here, where students were expected to blog about assigned reading, news discoveries, and other such things throughout the semester: GHS 208 Spring 2020 Blog
Of related interest, here are several calls for papers about Asia, one focused on the current pandemic.
Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic
The Rise of Asia in Global History and Perspective
Asia, Europe, and Global Connections
How did your courses intersect with and/or adapt to the pandemic?
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