Cambridge University to ‘decolonise’ English curriculum

English Literature professors at Cambridge University will have to ensure the presence of black and minority ethnic writers (BME) on their courses under new proposals put forward by academic staff, The Telegraph reports.

The move follows an open letter addressed to the faculty written by Cambridge University Student Union Women’s Officer Lola Olufemi and signed by over 100 students.

“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.”

Olufemi called the decision ‘a promising step forward that the letter is being taken seriously by the faculty’ in an interview with student paper Varsity.

The English Faculty’s Teaching Forum, an institution for staff to discuss the curriculum and teaching issues, discussed a number of actions to address students’ concerns.

These include ‘actively seeking’ to ensure the presence of BME texts and topics, ‘actively encouraging’ the sharing of reading suggestions of BME writers and topics and 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 decisions were opposed by some at Cambridge University.

“It goes with the calls to stop teaching predominantly Western or European history as well as literature,” Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History Gill Evans told The Telegraph.

"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.”

University teaching fellow and Teaching Forum member Dr Priyamvada Gopal, however, welcomed the decision.

“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 told The Telegraph.

BME topics should “cease to be 'optional' in a Faculty where complete coverage of 'English literature' is otherwise mandatory”, said Dr Gopal, who specialises in colonial and postcolonial literature.

“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 Faculty responded to student demands and that is the right way to go.”

Other faculties at Cambridge, including lecturers in the Social Sciences, have also been discussing ways to ‘decolonise’ the university, The Telegraph reports.