In a Black Lives Matter-inspired move, a British university has cancelled the term “Anglo-Saxon” from its curriculum.
The University of Nottingham has removed “Algo-Saxon” from courses on history and literature to push back against “nationalist narratives”.
According to The Telegraph, a masters-level course, Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies, has been renamed as Viking and Early Medieval English Studies.
Another module, a literature course originally named “A Tale of Seven Kingdoms: Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age England from Bede to Alfred the Great” has been recast as “Early Mediaeval England from Bede to Alfred the Great”.
While the thrust of the “decolonise the curriculum” agenda — which the university pledged to do amid the Black Lives Matter movement — has typically focussed on attacking British history and identity, the university reportedly said that it will seek to “problematize the term ‘Viking’” as well.
Nottingham academics have also been seeking to dismantle “essentialist ideas” about nationality, namely the very concept of a distinct English identity which has unique and fundamental characteristics.
The school is not alone in attacking the history of the Anglo-Saxons, with the University of Cambridge now teaching students that Anglo-Saxons never actually existed as a distinct ethnic group.
The move, ironically made by Cambridge’s leading Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC) studies, was reportedly done in order to promote “anti-racist” ideology.
“One concern has been to address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity,” the department is reported as saying.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Cambridge University Press academic publication, the Anglo-Saxon England Journal, said that it would be removing Anglo-Saxon from its name to better represent the “international, interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving nature of research in this field”.
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