Essay by Jeff Stanzler and Michael Fahy featured by U-M Humanities Collaboratory

In the essay “Reflecting on El-Kurru and Nubia Odyssey,” Fahy and Stanzler discuss the experience of Mr. Narbe Mansoruian’s sixth grade class that recently participated in Nubia Odyssey. The class took part in an eight-week project in which, twice each week, they read reports from a number of “correspondents” on topics ranging from excavating a pyramid, to Anwar’s stories how people in El Kurru thought about and engaged with the pyramids, to the 1965 displacement of Nubians with the construction of the Aswan dam, to the creative work of cultural activists like Arbaab, Nabra and Mona, dedicated to preserving Nubian culture.

“Many people don’t know about El Kurru, for example, or Nubia, and how they live on a daily basis, and their culture. I think it’s really cool that we as a class got to learn that…” said one of Mr. Narbe’s students.

Fahy and Stanzler write, “We are fond of describing the Earth Odyssey project as a ‘window and a mirror’ in which, in the process of considering the accounts and stories of ‘exotic’ lives (the window) lived on another side of the planet, one empathetically reflects on his or her own experience (the mirror) and recognizes the similarities.”