The University of Leicester will stop teaching the great English medieval poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer in favour of modules on race and sexuality, according to new proposals.
Management told the English department that courses on canonical works would be dropped in favour of modules that "students expect" as part of plans now under consultation.
Foundational texts such as The Canterbury Tales and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf would no longer be taught, under proposals to scrap medieval literature. Instead, the English faculty will be refocused to drop centuries of the literary canon and deliver a "decolonised" curriculum devoted to diversity.
Chaucer was from England. The University of Leicester is in England. As the English can't colonize England--that's not what "colonize" means--how is eliminating an English writer from an English university "decolonizing"? You'd think professors of English would understand that words have meaning--but you'd apparently be wrong.
5 comments:
I read the article, and my blood began to seethe a bit.
I had a Chaucer class, and I still have my Riverside Chaucer, a huge hardcover textbook. Chaucer and I are old friends. Understanding Chaucer -- not just the Middle English, but the context and the texts -- is a window into understanding where English came from and how it got here. To lose that, because neo-Marxists don't care for the past? That is sacrilege.
I also had to translate Beowulf for my MA program, and Beowulf is on the block, too, as well as the masterpiece "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."
Much that I hold as high and holy is termed dross and irrelevant by these "scholars" at Leceister.
I hope to hear, that in the next couple of weeks, that there has been such an uproar that they have decided this was a bad idea.
We can't change their minds, unfortunately, but we can hit their pocketbooks.
Maybe they're trying to reverse the Norman, Anglo-Saxon, and Roman invasions with an emphasis on original Pictish literature?
Nah, that would make too much sense.
Jay - Hey, my tiny alma mater in Idaho offers courses in Palestinian literature. The whole world is crazy, even the remote corners.
I will just leave this right here, from the U of Leicester "About" page:
"The central building, now known as the Fielding Johnson Building, houses the University's administration offices and Leicester Law School. This was formerly the Leicestershire and Rutland Lunatic Asylum."
Joanne also did a post about this over the weekend, and here's the first comment:
Sounds to me like they want to recolonize the literature of the world, appropriating it for unseemly purposes and viewed explicitly through the English gaze. Think I got that right. 🙂
(link at https://www.joannejacobs.com/2021/01/chaucer-is-shelved-to-decolonise-curriculum/#comment-233223)
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