Study Abroad Pedagogy, Dark Tourism, and Historical Reenactment

Book excerpt: This book is a genre-breaking response to the literature on study abroad. It stakes claim to an uncharted space between reflective pedagogy, public history studies, and investigations into dark tourism. Drawing on the author’s experience of teaching short-term summer programs and courses in London between 2011 and 2018 that focused wholly or in part on the Whitechapel murders of 1888, the book analyzes experiential learning in the study abroad context. The book is informed by the instructor’s reflections; students’ informal essays and anonymous evaluations; and the scholarship of teaching and learning. It begins by situating programs and courses on the Whitechapel murders in the context of debates about overseas and experiential learning. It then proceeds to discuss the constraints to and possibilities for devising study abroad programs to include graduate students in humanistic disciplines; assignments and classroom activities utilized, including those with a reenactment component; the ethical complexities of teaching at dark sites; and the pedagogical implications of learning about Jack the Ripper in an age of terror. It concludes with reflections on the differences between study abroad programs and courses in cultivating students’ global-mindedness.