If Michael Gove did attend any OEL events, he obviously didn’t learn much from them, but rather – on the evidence of booting American texts out of the GCSE literature syllabus in favour of English classics – remains wedded to definitions of English literature which were moribund even in his own undergraduate days. Most of the traditionalist dons of 1980s Oxford have retired by now, but since this backward-minded pupil of theirs occupies high office, their dead hand still malignly grips the throat of the subject nationally. If the Secretary of State can spare some quiet reading time from his busy campaign of educational retrogression, I’ll happily send him a complete set of News from Nowhere so that he can update himself on his subject. Better late than never.
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A version of this post appeared as a letter in the Times Higher Education Supplement for 12 June 2014.
Interesting. Hope this isn’t too off topic but we face the same thing or even worse from the deeply conservative led schools. Whether a hoax or not the Trojan Horse scandal is very concerning and an issue with which I’m familiar. Having brought home a copy of Lawrence’s Women In love, with a nude woman on the cover, my mother, reprimanded me and stole it. It was incredibly embarrassing. I had to be secretive about going off to Art Life Class. Unfortunately too many white liberals maintain the attitude that ‘they’ just have different mores and ultimately do not have the same rights as the white majority. No wonder we have so many dreadful problems in our community. The question is what controls will there be in place to avoid this persisting and how can one ascertain perhaps more subtle oppressive cultural mores in an Ofsted inspection. Just go on the internet and look up ‘muslim majority schools’ and the uniform girls are required to wear is replete with the narrative of shame in relation to a female’s body and sexuality-but it’s OK cos’ they’re yellow.. We will not evolve either as individuals or as communities if we do not talk openly about and confront issues to do with women, homosexuality, sexuality etc-. It’s the reason why I wanted to study Eng/Lit-to say and understand the unsaid and that which may be taboo.
(This isn’t an anti-muslim rant by the way-I’m from the community and am very concerned about the damage done by such a backwards mentality). From Shahida .
Thanks for this, Shahida. I have occasionally had Christian students who refused to read or study sexually explicit novels like 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' or Thomas Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow', so yes, I don't think such literary conservatism is specific to Muslim communities, by any means. And I would agree with Jacques Derrida (in a 1989 interview with Derek Attridge) that literature has to remain "this strange institution which allows one to say everything". Good luck with your own continuing literary studies.
On that point it’s one thing individuals of university entrance age electing not to read something but quite another maintaining entire schools which inculcate vulnerable young minds into a particular ideological mindset. I remember doing voluntary work at such a primary school where each and every book was vetted for the faintest whiff of anything that might be construed as concerning ‘relationships’-even the mundane antics of personified vegetables, I kid you not. We should remember that for many of these children school is probably the only place they receive another narrative. Without wishing to labour the point I am very disappointed that too many people of the left seem to maintain a ‘cultural relativist’ position where a perceived difference aligns with the attribution of fewer rights. With some exceptions such as Polly Toynbee,the moral argument is thus ceded to the Right where liberal values often mingle with bigotry. Why is this , Mr Pinkney? From Shahida
You're right to pull me back to the question of schools, Shahida, on which my view would be: faith schools of all kinds should be abolished and replaced with a fully secular system of primary and secondary education.
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