Dr. Anita Baksh (LaGuardia Community College) and Dr. Laëtitia Saint-Loubert (Université de la Réunion)
Students will study experiences of indentured labor in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature from a transoceanic perspective and work together with an international partner to analyze, interpret and produce a translation of a literary text related to Indian indentureship writing.
Project Goals
- For five weeks, students will develop projects with international partners using a variety of digital tools and platforms as part of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model.
- Focuses on narratives of indenture in Indo-Caribbean, Indo-Mauritian and Indo-Reuinionese writing.
- Each week, students will learn key terms and themes related to experiences of indenture such as working conditions, inter-ethnic relationships, gendered experiences, languages, and Indian culinary and cultural traditions.
- Students will be exposed to French and English languages through project literature as well as introduced words and expressions from various Creoles, Hindi, and Bhojpuri.
Outcomes & Deliverables
The project encourages digital engagement between institutions with various linguistic backgrounds to learn about indentured labor from a transoceanic perspective and further decolonize curricula. Students will submit final translation projects and a reflection.
Resources
Project Lesson Plan
Schedule with descriptions of assignments and suggested bibliography (Shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.)
“Coolies: How Britain Re-invented Slavery”
A video that helps introduce key themes in the project’s first week.
Institute Reflection
Laëtitia’s perspective on the institute experience.
