In a literary studies-focused Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project, students?from Catalonia, Spain and the U.S. experienced holistic learning activities that hinged experiential analysis and interpretation practice to urgent problems of social and economic instability. By using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to engage sustainability topics, with an emphasis on cross-cultural understandings of shared human challenges, we rendered Humanities course content relevant to students. Learners partnered on an?"Artists of the Self" assignment in which they examined non-conforming characters who resist cultural norms and create new identities as acts of resistance and survival. Three?SDGs, 3 Good Health and Wellbeing, 5 Gender Equality, and 10 Reduced Inequalities, framed students' critical thinking as they compared Catalan and northeast U.S. perceptions of topics from feminist stories including mental health stigma, gender (non)conformity, teen suicide, and sex work. We determined that COIL pedagogies, layered with sustainability approaches, develop interpersonal, values-thinking, and systems-thinking competencies that reinforce the value of reading and corresponding through literature with people within and between cultures. In the shared context of COVID-19 pandemic, students developed transcultural empathy, tried new leadership roles, and recognised their potential as change agents.