A university is facing fury over its plans to drop English language and medieval literature modules in favour of a “decolonised curriculum”.
The University of Leicester said it was considering cutting subjects after a “drop in demand”, and instead focusing on ethnicity, sexuality and diversity.
The idea has been met with dismay by a number of academics and students.
Among those opposed to the changes is Professor Isobel Armstrong, a fellow of the British Academy, who has returned her honorary doctorate from the university in protest.
The Leicester branch of the University and College Union (UCU) said Prof Armstrong made her decision “in protest at the egregious attack on the integrity of English at Leicester and the attempt to eradicate 1,000+ years of language and literature from the curriculum”.
In January, the University of Leicester announced a consultation over proposals across a number of departments. It also plans to cut 60 posts, putting 145 staff at risk of redundancy.
Under the restructuring, the English department would no longer teach medieval literature due to “a drop in demand from undergraduate and postgraduate students in recent years”.
If adopted, the changes would also mean the university discontinuing BA English with English language, and MA English Language and Linguistics.
The university said it would instead offer “a range of modules which are excitingly innovative”, such as modules on race, ethnicity, sexuality and diversity.
The university said the changes would provide a “decolonised curriculum”.
A university spokeswoman said this means reconsidering how the subject is taught “to make it more inclusive and reflect emerging developments”.
“For example, many reading lists are dominated by white authors,” she said.
“This ignores many great BAME scholars and also means that BAME students do not see themselves reflected in what they are being taught.”
A total of 56% of last year’s undergraduate students at the university classed themselves as BAME, the university added.
Final year English student Rhiannon Jenkins has taken the opposite view saying: “We want decolonisation, the student body does want decolonisation.
“But we disagree that decolonisation is synonymous with redundancies, and we disagree that it’s synonymous with getting rid of medievalism and early modern English literature.”
The 21-year-old, who is the course representative for final year English students, said: “We think that [the university has] used this rhetoric of decolonisation to suggest that the English department haven’t done any work towards it, and suggest that medievalism and early modern literature has no place for decolonisation in it.”
The English Association, an organisation devoted to studying and teaching the English language, is based at the university. It said it was “shocked to hear of the proposed closure of English Language and Medieval Studies at the university”.
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