Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The use of role-immersive pedagogy is becoming more common as an effective means to teach history, communications, philosophy, and political science. Its prevalence is largely due to the success of Reacting to the Past curricula, in which students read, write, and debate about historical texts and/or key moments in history through active role-playing games. Yet, this form of pedagogy, as my research has uncovered, extends back to medieval pedagogical practices where students at English universities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would play various roles non in propria persona (or not in one’s own person). This form of pedagogy was used not only to teach the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), but also moral philosophy and proper clerical behavior. Notably for the latter, students would inhabit royal and ecclesiastical personas from fictional kingdoms in distant lands to examine and critique ideas and operations of “good governance.” This kind of role immersion was as much about adhering to appropriate behavior in the colleges and halls as it was about preparing students for effective governance at royal and ecclesiastical institutions. This paper considers how these past pedagogies from the Middle Ages might serve to expand current pedagogies of role immersion across disciplines in the humanities.