Yale ‘decolonizes’ English dept. petition claimed white authors ‘actively harms’ students

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: slider1982

I think the point of all this is that we don't know what other writers existed at the time because our schools don't teach it.
There could be 100s of poets, writers, from china and africa during those times. Seems to me that the collage now teaching about all of them is the right thing to do. And as far as the idea that the african poem would be clicks and whistles or that we can't read ancient chinese writings .....most of it can be translated the same we translate old english. Here is an example of a poem that students have to learn, read in it's original language. www.openculture.com...

If there were, they weren't writing in English. They were writing in their native languages. They may have been producing works of merit.

The Tale of Genji is one work of merit, but when you study it in an English course, you are studying the English translation as much as you are studying the actual work itself because much of the original is lost in translation.

a reply to: slider1982

en.wikipedia.org...
This is a chinese writing that is important to human history.

en.wikipedia.org...
This is a north african arab writer that is important to human history.

Cant find anything about 15th century writers from anywhere but north africa.

It only took me a few mins to find out about those two guys.
What I wonder , and maybe some ATS collage grad can tell us, do you learn about these two guys and the dozens of others from all over the world that have created great works of writing OR did your literature course in collage only focus on europe?


Edit: ops I'm arguing the wrong topic. But hey at least you now know that there were important 15th century chinese writings that have been translated.

a reply to: ketsuko

Ok, I just realized we are talking about an ENGLISH literature class.
I'm arguing for a GENERAL literature class.

Sorry.



An english lit class should teach about english lit.
A general lit class should teach about general world lit.

If you want general lit don't take an english lit class.....

a reply to: scraedtosleep

No one is saying that there have not been important works produced in other languages by other cultures.

But, yeah, these poor kids are angry that they're studying Shakespeare and Chaucer as part of earning an English degree because they felt that made their English degree too white.

a reply to: ketsuko

Its strange.
I mean I guess if you go back far enough through latin and then phoenician and sumerian and even further you will find that english has roots that come from many different races of people. But, a united states collage english lit class was made to focus on europe of the 14-17th centuries and the influence that place and time has had on modern america. I thought that anyone attending collage would know that.

Do collages even offer other literature classes?
If not than that is something that needs to change.

AND SO many think the PC war is nothing...

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: ketsuko

Its strange.
I mean I guess if you go back far enough through latin and then phoenician and sumerian and even further you will find that english has roots that come from many different races of people. But, a united states collage english lit class was made to focus on europe of the 14-17th centuries and the influence that place and time has had on modern america. I thought that anyone attending collage would know that.

Do collages even offer other literature classes?
If not than that is something that needs to change.

Someone up thread pointed out that at least the University of Wisconsin offers many different classes with many different literary themes.

When I was in college, it was no different. I took one class that all about the early female playwrights in England. That's how I know about Afra Behn for example.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: seasonal

If you had black authors from the time of Shakespeare, all it would be was clicks and whistles.

You posted rubbish and folks starred you, at least Seasonal gave an answer that said maybe he wasn't sure, which is fine in that it leave room for investigation.

Blacks have been authors from the time of Egypt through the Greco-Roman era the medieval or as I like to refer to it the African renaissance. Ever heard of Asop? How about Al Jahiz Abu Uthman, how about Ahmed Baba never heard of him either l bet, and thats ok, but he was only one of the most prolific writers of the Medieval University city of Timbuktu,

The kebra Naghast or book of kings an Axumite work of the 14 cent.

Side note : in the Medieval city of Timbuktu the literacy rate approached nearly 100% for both men and women, children attended classes, scholars were treated like sports or movie stars of that era, books were traded like gold, communications were linked to other high centers of learning throughout Africa and the middle east.

So pretty please with cherry on top, easy with the soft core racist crap combined with ignorance.

a reply to: Spider879

Were they writing in English or another language though?

Again, they produced a body of work best studied in that language otherwise you are studying the English translations. Sometimes, the English translations are adequate to carry over the merits of the work in question but translations are never exact.

Look at all the myriad translations of the Hebrew Old Testament and later Greek New Testament and all the arguments they produce. Considering the difference in language with some languages having far more words with far more shades of meaning for some concepts than others (look at all the different words for love in Greek as compared to English or the different words for types of house in English as compared to simply casa in Spanish), works translated necessarily change character across translation.

So a really good study of literature written in a foreign language will almost become a study of the language too.

a reply to: ketsuko

They wrote in a local script called Ajami for every day living eg ; poetry ,love letters gossip etc, science , history and laws in Arabic.
BTW excellent questions and observations..

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: ketsuko

They wrote in a local script called Ajami for every day living eg ; poetry ,love letters gossip etc, science , history and laws in Arabic.
BTW excellent questions and observations..

The Golden Age managed to produce a pretty good body of work before the Imams decided to declare Islam settled and the type of Islam they decided on sort of shut a lot of that down.