Secular higher education attempts to articulate a moral and educational universalism, with critics variously claiming its neutrality as specious or incapable of nurturing critical elements of human flourishing. A different set of worries concern Catholic universities and the degree to which they are or can or should be Catholic. Similar worries exist concerning how to deploy or cultivate an authentically Islamic education that can “address the epistemic alienation and psychological dislocation afflicting many Muslims” while also “serving the fundamental needs of all.” These debates give rise to specific concerns about transplanting US universities to non-democratic nations, with critics proclaiming the inevitabilities of either a neo-colonial destabilization of local autonomy or authoritarian corruption and dilution of liberal higher education.
Georgetown University in Qatar straddles these tensions, and its classrooms are frontline territory. Given its unique and even enviable hyper-pluralism, most or all of those in our classrooms, including faculty, experience some level of genuine marginalization—sometimes on account of those sharing the room.
Using this specific context as our starting point, this roundtable will discuss how we not only navigate but leverage these tensions in order to enhance student education. Specifically, participants will:
Wrestle with how we can teach about and in the face of universal though often asymmetric marginalization
Promote classroom techniques that take advantage of this dynamic
Consider means of enhancing students’ and our own ability to hear and recognize and respond with care to one another’s experiences
