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 The author of Pride and Prejudice has been replaced by Toni Morrison, a black woman who has written about the African American experience.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The author of Pride and Prejudice has been replaced by Toni Morrison, an writer known for works about the African American experience, as the focus of an English module at Stirling University.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.
