Over the next several weeks, we will collaborate to explore country-specific sustainability challenges as represented in Egyptian film and literature. Humanities fields, which include literature and film, as well as history, arts, theater, and philosophy, offer ways of understanding individual and collective human behavior. Literature and film allow us to explore how we think, what we value, and why; they allow us to study power, authority, and conditions of inequality and exclusion; and they offer ways of communicating our stories and advocating for change. These insights are essential to producing informed, equitable, and lasting solutions to humanity’s challenges.
We will be reading two short stories and viewing two films and will connect each to a specific SDG. In doing this, we have two goals: one, to better understand the sustainability challenges and opportunities Egypt faces; and two, to explore the role of texts and media to inform, persuade, or advocate.
Through this project students will be able to:
- Engage in respectful and responsive communication to manage differences and build relationships with international peers.
- Analyze formal elements of literary and film texts, including character, plot, figurative elements and theme.
- Demonstrate understanding of several current sustainability challenges in Egypt, including Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, Goal 5: Gender Inequality, and Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.