Stirling University has replaced Jane Austen on a literary course in order to decolonise the curriculum. The author of Pride and Prejudice has been replaced by Toni Morrison, a black woman who has written about the African American experience.
According to The Telegraph:
The author of Pride and Prejudice has been replaced by Toni Morrison, an writer known for works about the African American experience, as the focus of an English module at Stirling University.
Replacing Austen on the English literature programme would help the “decolonisation of the curriculum”, university documents stated ahead of the change.
Swapping the Regency author for Morrison would also “contribute to increased diversity” on the syllabus, according to forms informing management of alterations to course material.
This material will include markedly different themes compared to those in Austen’s novels, with students told: “The main topics covered will include racial difference and critical race theory, gender and sexuality.”
Those taking on the Special Authors module in 2022 will also be taught about “black postmodernism, Gothic, as well as the aesthetics of the contemporary US and African-American novel”.
The changes to the course come following a commitment made in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, with Stirling University Principle Prof Gerry McCormac saying the institution must “support an anti-racist agenda in higher education”.
Higher education is being replaced with indoctrination. You might say there’s nothing new there.
This type of claptrap would have been laughed off campus when I was at university.
Even worse Some books you just cant buy or get – try Tony bushby the papal billions – no way . soon 1984 no way…
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Well she had no black, disabled or sexually ambiguous characters so she must be a fascist, she may as well have put swastikas on her front covers.
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Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t get a look in.
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The works of Jane Austen describe a completely different culture to the one that exists today, which should be of value to anyone who claims to appreciate multiculturalism.
And what is the imposition of an African-American (that is to say an American with a, likely, distant African heritage) if not a form of American colonialism?
And if it all about ‘representation’ – well, I am no more represented by the characters in Austen’s works than I am by an African-American. But that hasn’t stopped me reading Austen’s works (though I am far more partial to ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters’), because I have always been far more interested about reading about other people, in stories that I find enjoyable, than in seeing a mirror reflection of myself – which, frankly, smacks of individual or collective narcissism.
But then, I encountered this attitude for the first time back in 1990 when a good friend of mine (at the time) espoused the idea that ‘Robinson Crusoe’ should be banned because of its ‘racist’ content.
The argument held no more sway with me then than it does now.
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The irony is we have a new form of colonisation, it’s called globalisation. In today’s world consumerism has largely replaced national identity and culture.
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