(Just a work-related review that I wanted to have record of...)

Here's a quick and dirty summary of my impressions regarding yesterday's (Wednesday, April 7) videoconference between UNC and AUC (The American University in Cairo). Dr. Sahar Amer, of the Asian Studies curriculum, and seven students in her French 330 class hosted a 90 minute meeting with an American professor and a large, ethnically diverse group at the Cairo institution.

While I worked the camera in Hyde's seminar room, the class took part in various discussions on French literature and cultural/racial stereotypes. During the first half hour (and after everyone's initial hesitancy to interact with "strangers") students exchanged ideas about the French medieval epic The Song of Roland, posing and answering questions like: How oriental is the text? How historical? Was the original purpose of the text to entertain or portray a sense of French nationality? etc.

Following this shared interpretation of the text, the UNC and AUC students had the opportunity to exchange thoughts on the typical stereotyping and generalizing that goes on in their respective countries. They focused mainly on the mainstream media and how it perpetuates certain misconceptions about the two countries. (By and large, the students concluded that, since the US is such a world power and dominates the international news headlines, Arabs and Middle Easterners are more aware of American's and American life than the reverse: Americans aren't likely to find much good cultural material about foreign countries unless they're willing to do some serious digging on their own.) Hollywood also drew some fire, and I remember an AUC student mentioning how the movie "Clueless" gave her and her countrymen/women an exaggerated look at American high-school life. 9/11, as well, figured into a brief debate about the dangers of over-categorizing an ethnic group.

Despite a few minor network hiccups and bandwidth issues, the videoconference was a big success. Both sides handled video transmission delays and sporadic audio dropouts well, and I was quite pleased with how transparent the technology was. Students actually conversed with one another, back and forth between sites, and with their own classmates – while the video link was up. Before the class ended, students from both universities expressed how helpful the chance to talk with their counterparts firsthand had been and how they felt more informed about the "other" culture.