Arts of the Arab Spring, West African mosques, Harari Qurans, Almoravid and Almohad textiles, and Abbasid ceramics – until recently, your online search for these topics would pull up links to social media posts, research journals, news articles, and other sources of information, but you wouldn’t find Wikipedia articles summarizing them.
That is, until the students in Oberlin College’s Approaches to Islamic Art course brought nearly 20,000 words and 262 references to create new Wikipedia articles and improve existing articles along the way.
“In a time when the Islamic world is increasingly misunderstood and often negatively stereotyped, it’s important that my students continue to add content to Wikipedia about the region, its visual culture, and the ways visual culture not only reflect but shape its history,” said professor Holley Ledbetter. “Islamic art is underrepresented on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to objects and architectures outside of the Arab world or so-called Middle East. Having my students research West African Mosques and Harari Qurans, for example, not only added to the world’s knowledge of Islamic art, but pushed my students to reconceptualize the boundaries of Islamic art.”
You may be familiar with the 2011 protests, uprisings, and rebellions commonly known as the Arab Spring, but thanks to Ledbetter’s students who created the new Arts of the Arab Spring Wikipedia article, we can better understand the influential role of artistic expression during this time.
“After building an extensive bibliography to get started, the group exclaimed their shock that no article existed on Wikipedia yet!” explained Ledbetter. “They couldn’t understand how that was possible when it was such a robust and well-published topic.”
By building out the sections by country and artwork medium, the student editors examined the many forms of artwork developed during the uprisings in Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Libya, including street art, cartoons, music, banners, and poetry. Unique to each country in style, theme, and impact, the publicly-shared artwork centered on themes like workers’ rights, governmental corruption, police violence, and censorship – connections now outlined for readers throughout the article.
While their research for the Arts of the Arab Spring article kept one student editor group in the 21st century, three other classmates traveled much further back in time to create the article on Almoravid and Almohad textiles, offering readers detailed context for the cultural and economic significance of the materials. Others created new articles like Harari Qurans and Abbasid ceramics, or added content to existing articles like the list of mosques in Africa.
“In their final course reflections, almost every student cited the Wikipedia editing assignment as the most impactful assignment of the semester,” said Ledbetter, who hears how excited students are to share their work with family and friends. “Knowing that they will be contributing to the world’s knowledge of Islamic art on a public platform like Wikipedia raises the stakes and they take the assignment seriously.”
In addition to this heightened sense of responsibility and motivation, the Wikipedia assignment also helps students sharpen their research and synthesis skills, explained the art history professor.
“To complete the project, they need to engage in thorough research and then they have to actually read that research and try to make sense of it,” said Ledbetter. “Through the project, my students also learn to discern quality scholarly resources from unreliable resources. By the end of the project, students understand and are able to actually talk about how the field of Islamic art history has constructed knowledge on a particular topic…When students take part in the construction of knowledge in this way, they really buy into the work of the discipline.”
Ledbetter’s favorite moment of the project with her students is marked by high-fives and a shared sense of accomplishment.
“The best part of the semester is always the moment students upload their work together in class,” said Ledbetter. “When student groups begin to high five one another and congratulate their team members on their collective effort, I know we’ve done something worthwhile.”
Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.
