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I agree with what they’re doing, but the messaging around it is odd. What they’re trying to do is diversify their curriculum from western-dominant culture to i
by sergiomattei 4y ago
I agree with what they’re doing, but the messaging around it is odd.
What they’re trying to do is diversify their curriculum from western-dominant culture to include other, lesser-mentioned cultures. That’s fine and honestly a refreshing take from higher education.
The messaging is inflammatory and ridiculous though. The problem is not white or colonizer culture. The problem is Western-centric education excluding other interesting literary movements around the globe.
As usual, this sounds like a reasonable move branded terribly by the woke mob (or a media outlet trying to find their next outrage piece).
I don’t find it patronizing at all — what I do find patronizing is the interpretation by the quoted author on the article.
- Tycho 4y agoWhat you need to understand is that the towering achievements of (historical) European culture are simply a constant thorn in the sides of the woke. The more they think about it, the more it drives them insane.
- legitster 4y agoAbsolutely. This is a single requirement in a single curricula at a private hoity toity college. And if the professor had done the exact same thing but simply said "this is old fashioned and we want to be more inclusive" there would be no story here. That said, I think there's some value in pointing out the specific wrongness with this train of thought rather than leave it as a vague "wokeness run amok!".
- colechristensen 4y agoIt's not though, it's a university wide effort to "decolonize" not a lone professor with funny ideas.
- legitster 4y agoFair enough. I guess writing the sonnet was just the one cited example. Well, at least now I get to know what kind of stuff the bloated administrative staff at my college was working on that whole time.
- Veen 4y agoPerhaps a contentious question, but why shouldn't an English university teach a western-dominated curriculum? I'm English, and that's my culture. I want to learn about it. I also want to learn about other cultures, but I see no issue with my culture being centered in the nation from which it originated. I don't imagine Chinese or Pakistani universities are terribly concerned about decentering their respective cultures.
- sergiomattei 4y agoThat’s not a problem! There’s nothing wrong with it. Perhaps you can switch professors or course. There are usually alternatives in these universities for going deeper in a topic. I’d expect a general literature course to give me a good overview of world literature, and to go deeper I’d choose a more specific class on the subject. There’s only so much time during the semester, and exposing the student to a breadth of information is the point.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoThere are classes in Elizabethan English literature. A broad creative writing class should be expected to cover more forms. It would be like learning the discoveries of only English chemists in chemistry class. The problem here is the wording the professor used to justify the change, but triggering outrage from the usual suspects by using the ancient "trolling" creative writing form and then "leaking" that justification seems like this could just be a kind of performance art.
- car_analogy 4y agoAnd it does cover more forms. But, until now, it focused on (not excluded all others, just focused on) traditional English forms. I.e. teaching young writers the styles of their culture, just as a university in Japan might require of their students proficiency in haikus. That does not mean they are not taught anything other than haikus, and I'm not sure where you got that impression.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]