QF: Georgetown Summer Session Gives QF Students Global Perspective on Current Crisis

Georgetown University in Qatar’s (GU-Q) summer semester offers students the opportunity to study the complex impact of COVID-19 through four virtual course options that address the crisis from political, social, cultural, economic, and historical perspectives.

While medical research on the viral outbreak has boomed for obvious reasons, students enrolled in GU-Q’s summer courses are learning how the research of social scientists and international affairs experts plays a critical role in understanding and recovering from a health disaster that has impacted international relations, globalization, education, economics, climate change, and the lives of billions.

“The politics of COVID-19 is important for us to understand because the virus is not a great leveler, as we thought initially,” explains GU-Q Assistant Professor Uday Chandra, who’s teaching the course Politics of the Pandemic this summer. “COVID-19 has shown us at our best and at our worst, and has exposed existing divides within and between societies. Ultimately, our fates are all tied together now, for better or worse.” 

For Assistant Professor Firat Oruc, the instructor for the Pandemics in World Literature course, great literary works—from Homer’s The Iliad to Camus’s The Plague—play a significant role in framing social and political responses to the crisis.  "Storytellers from ancient times to the present have sought to understand the impact of disease outbreaks, thus offering us a robust anthology of world literature that speaks to our current crisis in profound ways,” he said. 

The course Agency and Social Change, which is being taught by Assistant Director for Student Programs Uday Rosario, guides students through an exploration of concepts of justice and community engagement through individual action.  His course will also require students to design and implement an action plan with local community partners.. “We need to find ways in which we can contribute positively to alleviate the suffering of our local and global communities,” he said.

With a focus on the significant role of social media communication in society today, the course Chronicling Corona, taught by History Professor Amira Sonbol, is training future scholars on the science and significance of documenting history. “As we all witness the unfolding crisis, we are also serving to create a historical record of the on-going events, through our online interactions, the stories we tell, and the communication strategies we use. This effort is important, and  presents challenges that can be addressed in many ways.”

With 16 for-credit summer courses offered in all, GU-Q’s summer session runs from May 17 to June 25, 2020, packing the classroom hours of a standard academic term into 6 weeks. Enrollment in the online courses includes students from Georgetown and cross-registered students from other QF partner universities.