The English Department’s Decolonising the Curriculum Group on their Recent Research Project

Posted on: 26 October 2021 by Dr Hannah Lauren Murray and Dr Nektaria Efstathia Kourtali (co-leads of the Decolonising the Curriculum Group) in Posts

This past academic year the Department has been addressing the ways we teach language and literature in light of pressing calls to both diversify and decolonise the curriculum. As part of this work, we’ve run a student liaison group to discuss issues such as reading lists, types of assessment, and support for ethnic minority students joining the Department. We were also fortunate to be joined by Dr Claire Hynes and PhD student Arzhang Pezhman to talk to our students about decolonising activities at the University of East Anglia.

Following these events, we recruited three students to research further how race and colonialism has featured in their degrees so far, and to suggest what changes can be made in module topics, assessments, and learning culture in the Department. In addition to presenting their suggestions to the Department in July, Clara, Joe and Molly have written blogs on further ways that all our students can engage with questions of diversity and decolonisation while studying and living in Liverpool.

Heading into the next academic year, a staff working group will be looking at practical changes that can be made to our degree programmes and Departmental culture, and we hope to have more paid roles for students to support this work.

With thanks to the Department of English and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Beacon Projects for funding this work.

(You can read more about Clara, Joe and Molly’s work with the Decolonising the Curriculum Group on the English Blog!)