'Decolonizing the Curriculum' Panel
Date Published: 28.01.2025
Listen to our five experts dissect decolonization from different angles. Chaired by Ato Quayson and Wadham Fellow, Ankhi Mukherjee.
On Wednesday 22 January, Wadham hosted the 'Decolonizing the Curriculum' panel in the Holywell Music Room. Introduced by our Warden, Robert Hannigan, the panel centered around Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum, an Open Access collaborative volume edited by Ato Quayson and Ankhi Mukherjee. The book addresses issues of curriculum diversification and change from a global perspective, and is free to download worldwide.
Each contributor's short opening presentation can be listened to in the podcast release. The panel dissected the elements of the book's title, exploring what 'decolonizing' is, the etymology of 'curriculum', and why English literary studies is fertile ground for this sort of analysis.
Ato and Ankhi framed 'decolonization' broadly, not wanting to reduce the concept to matters of race, and emphasised a love of all the world's literature at the heart of the project.
The panelists discussed how to resist approaching African literature for ethnographic material, how to move beyond tokenistic inclusions of wider reading in curriculums, and how to treat historical sources where colonizing attitudes are present.
The audiences followed up with questions about who is in need of critical reflection on decolonization, and how to choose what to read when the possibilities feel endless.
Wadham thanks everyone who attended the event, and all the panelists for their contributions.
Robert Hannigan, Warden of Wadham College
Ato Quayson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, of Comparative Literature, of English, and of African and African American Studies, Stanford University.
Sloan Mahone Associate Professor of the History of Medicine, University of Oxford
William Ghosh, Associate Professor of World Literature, Christ Church College, University of Oxford.
Natalya Din-Kariuki, Assistant Professor of Early Modern Literature, University of Warwick
Ankhi Mukherjee, Professor of English and World Literature and Tutorial Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford