The Digital Souk: Immersive Stories of Arab Culture
Course Number: 82-216
This innovative interdisciplinary course reimagines the souk, a traditional Arab marketplace, as a dynamic space for cultural inquiry. The souk functions as a microcosm of society — a living intersection where heritage, traditions, oral history, gender roles and migrant stories converge and constantly evolve.
To explore these rich cultural dimensions, the course employs a multimodal approach that engages students virtually and physically. The course integrates immersive technologies (VR/AR) to simulate the sensory experience of the souk, allowing students to experience cultural landscapes across the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) and the diaspora. To ground this virtual exploration, the curriculum provides a contextualized history of pivotal eras and events — such as post-independence movements, the Arab Spring and geopolitical conflicts — that have driven transformative artistic, cultural and demographic shifts within Arab societies.
Building on this historical foundation, students engage in a dual-phase production model. First, utilizing AI video-generation tools, students craft a digital story centered on a specific facet of the souk, such as architecture, foodways, art, music or a personal narrative. Second, they capture lived realities through interviews and interactions at local cultural events, producing short documentaries that expand upon their initial digital narratives. Throughout both projects, students act as critical curators. They are challenged to interrogate cultural authenticity and bias, analyze how stories are represented and synthesize their findings into cohesive multimedia projects. This work cultivates intercultural competence by documenting the vibrancy and resilience that define the souk as an evolving space of exchange, preservation, creativity and socio-cultural transformation.
Degree: Undergraduate
Concentration: Arabic Studies
Semester(s): Spring
Units: 9
Prerequisite(s): None