Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
Cambridge University caves to student demands to “decolonize” English curriculum.
[Camilla Turner, Education, Daily Telegraph 24th October 2017.]
“Cambridge University’s English Literature professors will be forced to replace white authors with black writers, under new proposals put forward by academic staff following student demands to “decolonise” the curriculum.
For the first time, lecturers and tutors will have to “ensure the presence” of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) writers on their course, under plans discussed by the English Faculty’s Teaching Forum.
The move follows an open letter, penned by Lola Olufemi, Cambridge University Student Union’s women’s officer and signed by over 100 students, titled “Decolonising the English Faculty”.
“For too long, teaching English at Cambridge has encouraged a ‘traditional’ and ‘canonical’ approach that elevates white male authors at the expense of all others,” the letter said.
“What we can no longer ignore, however, is the fact that the curriculum, taken as a whole, risks perpetuating institutional racism.”
They said that they are not seeking to exclude white men from reading lists. However, adding new BME texts and topics is likely to lead to existing authors being downgraded or dropped altogether, since there are no plans to lengthen courses to accommodate an expansion of reading materials.
Minutes from the Teaching Forum’s meeting earlier this month, seen by The Daily Telegraph, reveal the actions discussed by academics to address the students’ concerns.
One of the “points for action” is for Subject Group Committees (SGCs) - which are made up of academic staff- to “actively seeking to ensure the presence of BME texts and topics on lecture lists”.
The Teaching Forum also suggest that SGCs take editorial control of reading list folders and “actively encourage sharing of reading suggestions” of BME writers and topics.
They also suggest an Introductory Course of lectures in the first week of the academic year to “offer perspectives on the global contexts and history of English Literature”.
The minutes were sent out to students on behalf of the English Faculty chairman Professor Peter De Bolla, who heads the Teaching Forum, a new institution that was set up for academic staff to discuss the curriculum and teaching issues.
Gill Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at Cambridge University, said there are some “major problems” with this approach.
“It goes with the calls to stop teaching predominantly Western or European history as well as literature,” she said.
"If you distort the content of history and literature syllabuses to insert a statistically diverse or equal proportion of material from cultures taken globally you surely lose sight of the historical truth that the West explored the world from the sixteenth century and took control - colonially or otherwise - of a very large part of it. It is false to pretend that never happened.”
She pointed out that any literature that is added to the syllabus “for the sake of an artificial balance” will have to be “largely in translation for monoglot English students so it will itself be distorted”.
English Literature students have a range of study options, including Chaucer's works
Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a teaching fellow at Churchill College and member of the Teaching Forum, said she welcomed the move.
“Britain has a long history of contact with the rest of the world, not least through the imperial project, and that impacted what we call 'English literature' very thoroughly,” she said.
“Currently teaching of BME topics is largely restricted to the contemporary papers. In my view, such texts and topics need to be integrated much earlier and much more centrally.”
Dr Gopal, who specialises in colonial and postcolonial literature, said that BME topics should “cease to be 'optional' in a Faculty where complete coverage of 'English literature' is otherwise mandatory”.
“This isn't just about 'including' a few black or Asian voices for the sake of inclusion,” she said.
“Matters of race and identity are just as central as gender should be to thinking about ideas in the social sciences and humanities in particular. “What is important is that the English Fac responded to student demands and that is the right way to go.”
Ms Olufemi told Cambridge University's student newspaper Varsity that it is "a promising step forward that the letter is being taken seriously by the faculty.”
Academic staff in other faculties at Cambridge University have been discussing ways they can “decolonise” the curriculum, including the lecturers in Sociology, The Daily Telegraph understands.
Earlier this year, students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) demanded that figures such as Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant should be largely dropped from the curriculum because they are white.
The student union at SOAS insisted that when studying philosophy “the majority of philosophers on our courses” should be from Africa and Asia.
The union said it is part of wider campaign to “decolonise” the university, as it seeks to “address the structural and epistemological legacy of colonialism”.
Lola Olufemi: The student behind the campaign to 'decolonise' Cambridge
The female student behind the campaign to “decolonise” the Cambridge University’s English degree has previously said that white people who go on holidays Africa are “inherently selfish”.
Lola Olufemi, the women’s officer of Cambridge University Student Union, wrote the open letter which prompted the English Faculty’s discussion about the curriculum at their recent Teaching Forum meeting.
The English graduate, who grew up in north London, has claimed that students who go on gap year programmes that involve doing aid work in Africa are guilty of “fetishising” the African culture.
In an article for Varsity, the Cambridge University student newspaper, she wrote: “It shows an astounding level of entitlement to think that you, on your gap year or your three weeks abroad ‘exploring’, are going to do anything meaningful or long lasting to help the communities that you fetishise.”
She added that “at the very least” there must be a recognition that “what drives middle class white people to travel abroad is an inherent selfishness”.
Ms Olufemi has also written about what Cambridge can learn from Rhodes Must Fall campaign in Oxford, which called for the statue of the Victorian mining magnate Cecil Rhodes to be torn down from Oriel College due to his links with imperialism.
She was involved in the National Union of Students’ “Liberate My Degree” campaign and spoke on a “Liberate My Degree Week” panel event earlier this year.
Ms Olufemi has said that her top priority as women’s officer is “the admission of trans women to women's colleges” and to step up political campaigning.
Earlier this year, Murray Edwards College became the first of Cambridge’s all-women colleges to allow students who “identify” as a woman to apply."
At the university’s other women-only colleges, Newnham and Lucy Cavendish, any application must be recognised under the Gender Recognition Act, but their policies are understood to be under review.”
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
- kingfisher
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Re: Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
Perhaps we need to send Ms Olufemi to one of the colonies. What load of crap.
Re: Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
What I find hard to understand is why there would be any discrimination in the first place? Was it an actual thing or have the students had to invent it?
I mean, you would never get mathematical or scientific theory rejected on account of the originator being from Africa, would you?
But what is this about:
Earlier this year, students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) demanded that figures such as Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant should be largely dropped from the curriculum because they are white.
Why were they on the curriculum in the first place? Why would somebody learning about Africa need to be taught about Plato?
As to the petition, "Signed by over 100 students" is meaningless, without knowing the potential number of students who could have signed it. And were they all English Lit students, from Cambridge University?
I mean, you would never get mathematical or scientific theory rejected on account of the originator being from Africa, would you?
But what is this about:
Earlier this year, students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) demanded that figures such as Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant should be largely dropped from the curriculum because they are white.
Why were they on the curriculum in the first place? Why would somebody learning about Africa need to be taught about Plato?
As to the petition, "Signed by over 100 students" is meaningless, without knowing the potential number of students who could have signed it. And were they all English Lit students, from Cambridge University?
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Living in Polemi, Cyprus with my wife and daughter.
Re: Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
I suppose by the same argument all figures black, white, pink, sky blue pink with yellow dots should be dropped as I am sure someone could be found with an objection to each of them. Begs the question as to why students with such an outlook would wish to go and study in a predominantly (but not exclusively) white country.Earlier this year, students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) demanded that figures such as Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant should be largely dropped from the curriculum because they are white.