Reading Kuunmong: The Cloud Dream of the Nine as a Liberal Arts Education Text in the Metaverse Era

By examining a series of classes engaged in the reading of <i>Kuunmong: The Cloud Dream of the Nine</i> with the concept of the metaverse in mind, this study aims at developing a method of how to instruct students when it comes to reading the classics. This study also aims at getting students to rediscover the value of <i>Kuunmong</i> as a liberal arts education text.In order to ensure that students read difficult classical literature properly, an instructor needs to choose a proper work carefully and to consider how best to let the students read it. In our classes, reading <i>Kuunmong</i> was connected to the concept of the metaverse, taking into consideration the times in which we live, along with the interests of the students. In the reading part, the importance of actually finishing the reading, reading from the view point of the present world, autobiographical reading, reading together with related works, and so forth, were emphasized. Reinforcing group discussion and peer feedback increased the students’ participation and interests.Through the explanation of the similarities between the dream world of <i>Kuunmong</i> and the virtual world of the metaverse, the students approached <i>Kuunmong</i> with more interest and understood the themes better. In addition, in essays they wrote after reading <i>Kuunmong</i>, they dealt with many related topics, such as the methods of love and communication, the attitudes toward desires, the importance of experiences and actions, the problems of losing one’s sense of reality, and the importance of integrated thinking. They also explored the solutions to these problems. These topics are not very different from the goals of liberal arts education and the themes of <i>Kuunmong</i>. In this regard, we can confirm that reading <i>Kuunmong</i> using the concept of the metaverse can contribute to the achievement of such goals and to improving the understanding of <i>Kuunmong</i> as a text.