On this episode, Dr. Michaela Moura-Koçoğlu, Instructor in Florida International University’s Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, discusses her Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) course with FATEC in Brazil, “Gender Violence and the Law: Global Perspectives.” With COIL, domestic teachers partner with international teachers to have their students work together on a project using communication technology and the Internet. Moura-Koçoğlu earned her Ph.D. in Postcolonial Anglophone Literatures and Cultures from Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany. Her research interests include Indigenous Feminism; Studies in Gender Violence and Trauma; Trans-Indigenous Literary Studies; and Gender Dynamics of Globalization in Anglophone and Lusophone Literatures. She is the author of Narrating Indigenous Modernities: Transcultural Dimensions in Contemporary Māori Literature (2011). Her most recent publication, “Decolonizing Gender Roles in Pacific Women’s Writing: Indigenous Feminist Theories and the Reconceptualization of Women’s Authority” (2017) is in the journal Contemporary Women’s Writing.
Resources Mentioned
- Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
- Padlet
- Canvas Learning Management System
- Chega de Fiu Fiu (“She Got the Fiu Fiu”), TED Talk
- “Chega de Fiu Fiu,” documentary
- “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman"
Great Quotes
“If we look at, let's say, domestic violence in a specific country, an exclusive look at simply one country will pathologize this form of gender violence, right? We cannot tie it to one specific culture, but if we take up the example of domestic violence, that is something that's occurring globally. So what are the root causes and are there legal frameworks in place and why or why not do they fail? This is what I wanted students to look at. And for that you need really a global perspective.”
(On COIL and study abroad) “I don't think that this would replace study abroad, not at all, but on the contrary, I would say that engaging in such a collaborative project will only increase the appetite for study abroad. So if you can talk to someone from a different country, from a different culture and see similarities and see differences and get really interested in how life works in other countries, and that I think is a much better impetus to pursue study abroad.”