Creating a Transnational Learning Community

This deliverable discusses the learning solutions adopted by DETECt teachers-researchers to foster the dissemination of transcultural knowledge and skills among undergraduate and graduate European students in Cultural Studies through the analysis of popular European print and screen crime narrative works. Chapter 1 discusses the problems met by the Consortium in the realization of its educational programme during the Covid-19 pandemic. After describing some of the complications faced by DETECt teachers-researchers in coordinating their institutional teaching duties with the project’s tasks in §1.1, the difficult integration of pure research and learning activities in the frame of H2020 projects is analysed in §1.2. Chapter 2 examines the impact of a few specific challenges stemming from the project’s methodological framework on our learning experimentation and describes the work done to tackle these obstacles. After motivating the choice to adopt the Wikipedia platform to experiment a coordinated transnational learning activity involving three different virtual classrooms across Europe in §2.1, we discuss the specific challenges that condition humanistic research in a multilingual and transdisciplinary environment in §2.2. Chapter 3 presents the benefits of addressing crime fiction as a subject matter in terms of transcultural learning affordances. After discussing the multiple advantages of crime fiction as a ‘learning machine’ in §3.1, we present the work in progress to elaborate a synoptic learning methodology for the study of European popular culture in §3.2. Chapter 4 describes the work done to produce a variegated set of learning materials and the associated learning activities. In particular, we illustrate the rationale and design of the learning materials that have been produced on DETECt MOODLE (§4.1) and DETECt MOOC (§4.2) and present the work done with our students to introduce them to the protocols of Wikipedia editing and videographic criticism. Chapter 5 discusses a few evidences and presents a few reflections about the challenges experienced during our learning experimentation, as a base for drafting the recommendations advanced in the attached Policy Brief on Teaching and Learning European Cultural Studies in the Digital Era. In particular the chapter discusses the transfer of research results to transnational teaching, the lack of a public European technological infrastructure for transnational learning, the role of the European Universities Alliances in the future development of transnational learning initiatives.