A famous Latin course published by Cambridge University Press is to be reworked to contain more “diversity” despite criticism that it will damage the subject.
Originally printed in the 1970s, the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), a series of extremely well known Latin language textbooks printed by Cambridge University Press, is to be revised from its original edition to include more references to ethnic and gender diversity.
The move has been lambasted by one University student who has previously spoken out against the woke assault on Classics more generally, with some lecturers in the subject even being labelled “white supremacists” because of their interest in the ancient world.
According to a report by The Guardian, the long-loved textbooks are to have certain characters added to them to better represent the gender and “ethnic diversity” of the Roman world, while elements deemed to be problematic are due to be airbrushed out.
One lecturer within Cambridge has said that the changes are being made in order to engage students who have reportedly become “more aware of power dynamics and misogyny” to engage better with the material.
However, Dawn Treader — a student specialising in Latin who has previously publicly spoken out against the woke re-editing of the subject — has slammed the changes to the Cambridge texts as an attempt at “spoonfeeding young learners with left-wing ideologies in the guise of language instruction”.
“The CLC boasts of its attempts to create a course textbook which better reflects the ancient world and its ‘diversity’,” Dawn Treader told Breitbart London.
“However, in reality, it is not the coursebooks receiving a revamp, but rather it is the ancient world studied within their pages which is being edited, and questionably at that,” Treader continued, describing the change as an attempt to chase a “silly zeitgeist” that risks damaging the subject.
“This undertaking of the CLC reflects a concerning movement in academia: modern sensitivities are hoisted upon ancient content, where there is no place for them,” she went on to say. “If the shoe does not fit, then one must hack away at the foot until it does.”
The forthcoming changes to the textbooks represent only the most recent left-wing attempt at changing how the Classics are taught, with previous attempts including a guide which pushed teachers to use modern material to teach Latin rather than ancient text.
Published earlier this year, Teaching Latin: Contexts, Theories, Practices emphasised that instructors could engage their pupils by using Taylor Swift song lyrics, or by showing their class Minecraft videos reportedly shot entirely in Latin.
Meanwhile, lecturers within at least some University departments appear to be dealing with increased moral scrutiny from progressive inquisitors, with one academic saying that he had been labelled a “white supremacist” for his interest in the ancient world.
“Folks who want to defend the moral neutrality and political independence of looking at the ancient Greeks and Romans on their own terms, receive the slogan of the day, which is to be a white supremacist,” The Times reports Dr David Butterfield of Cambridge as saying.
“White supremacy is now used as a term for those who defend the intellectual value of studying Greece and Rome in a geographically, technically, culturally separate discipline. Or those who believe in the very existence of the concept which is western civilisation,” he continued.
“In classics, the historical relationship between the classical past and the modern present is becoming allegedly morally vicious,” Butterfield went on to say.