Decolonizing English

Decolonising the University of Exeter’s English department holds a lot of nuance as this is one department that has taken some steps to make decolonisation more accessible. The University has one page regarding Decolonising History (https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/about/aboutus/decolonisinghistory/) which is just an initiative taken by the History department to address bias within their discipline - to our knowledge there is no other course that has openly discussed this. By looking at both the modules offered as well as the staff of the department one can begin to understand the limits with which decolonisation is taking place within the English curriculum.

Firstly, there is greater flexibility within module selection for exploring decolonial attitudes and to begin engaging with the process of removing a Eurocentric gaze. In first year, it is compulsory to take ‘Approaches to Criticism’ a module that across two terms covers a vast variety of topics ranging from:

Empire, Culture and the media, Marxism, World systems, Discourse and power, Feminism, Race studies, Gender, and Queer theory.

These are just a few of the topics that each have a week dedicated to exploring nuances and pose a great introduction to demystifying notions of decolonisation of both race and gender specifically. However, to have one module dedicate only a week to each of these expansive topics perhaps isn’t enough to do them justice. Second year and third year modules offer greater insight into decolonisation. In second year, most of the modules will touch on some form of decolonisation and this is where it becomes easier to not engage with decoloniality as it is briefly mentioned or is only one week of discussion. Some modules (from personal experience) that really focus in on decolonisation is:

Empire of liberty, Culture, crisis, and ecology in a postcolonial world, and Critical theory.

Lastly, third year offers more choices with no limits on dissertation topics as well as these modules:

Acts of writing: from decolonization to globalization, Advanced critical theory, African narratives, Harlem and after: African American literature, Modernism, censorship, resistance, Insurgent narratives, and India uncovered.

However, being in second year currently, these are assumptions that have been made about their content, and especially for third year it is the responsibility of the module convenors, the lecturers, and seminar leaders to decide how closely they will engage with decolonisation. What is important is the range of niches and creative liberty that one is able to explore within the English course. However, these are only a few of the modules out of many others that are offered. Therefore, if students are unwilling to engage with decolonisation, then they easily can go through their degree without being encouraged to reconsider their Eurocentric education. Furthermore, due to time constraints and a lack of resources we were not able to look through the reading lists offered to explore how many BAME authors are present, however due to the nature of a lot of modules being about the UK and its history, an assumption can be made about a serious lack of diversity offered through literature.

While the course content offered is wide, the department itself is biased within its hiring practices due to a heavy racial bias present. With 87 academic staff members, approximately 92% are white - a shockingly high statistic given that the course has the breadth to offer rich insight and alternative perspectives through module choices. The academics within the department are highly skilled and well versed in their specific knowledge and this is not a testament to their character at all. Rather, it highlights that the University of Exeter cannot claim to be taking the steps towards decolonisation while still putting limits on the perspectives that they provide - even if the English course content is richer than others. Likewise, there is an imbalance of only 45% male staff which shows that perhaps gender bias is lessened within this department due to a more or less equal representation of genders across staff. Again, while the data collected has only been through the university website of staff profiles, this gives an indication of the poor status of racial bias within hiring at the University of Exeter.

Therefore, there are many improvements that can be made based on this data. Firstly, the university must aim to introduce policies to support the existing BAME staff within departments and to review the policies regarding hiring of staff members. If the issue they find is that the South-West is not very ethnically diverse then the University needs to take a stance on this nationwide issue instead of being complicit in this racial bias. Next, there must be more integration of decolonial attitudes into modules which will be done through reviewing the current curriculum content, reviewing the authorship of syllabus literature, and introducing more BAME academic staff members. Furthermore, there must be a page by the department of English that shows their pledge to decolonise their curriculum and what it means to them. Then lastly, to further education of students, the department should send emails with reading lists about decolonisation as well as using a section of the library to promote more BAME authors.

If the University and the English department claim to be decolonial then they must make policies regarding their stance as their current silence speaks loud to complicity.