The University of Nottingham has decided to remove the term "Anglo-Saxon" from several course titles as part of an effort to "decolonize the curriculum."
The term is being replaced with "Early Medieval English" in courses such as History and English Literature.
This change comes after ongoing campaigns by academics who argue that "Anglo-Saxon" suggests a distinct, native English identity, which has increasingly become associated with racist ideologies, particularly in the United States, where it is often used to refer to white people.
In addition to this, the university, part of the prestigious Russell Group, is also reconsidering the use of the term "Viking." According to The Daily Telegraph, this is part of a broader effort to address concerns related to Norse mythology and its historical connections to issues of race, empire, and Nazism, with Norse symbols being co-opted by groups like the Nazis.
Nottingham is the only university in the UK to offer a Viking Studies course. However, the institution plans to rename an English literature module from "A Tale of Seven Kingdoms: Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age England from Bede to Alfred the Great" to "Early Medieval England from Bede to Alfred the Great," reflecting these concerns.
The term "Anglo-Saxon" has traditionally been used to describe the cultural group that emerged after the fall of Roman Britain and before the Norman Conquest in 1066, referring to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who ruled over what would later become England. However, in recent years, the term has been increasingly scrutinized and considered controversial.
This shift at Nottingham follows a similar move by Cambridge University in 2023, where students were taught that Anglo-Saxons did not exist as a distinct ethnic group, challenging the coherence of identities like Anglo-Saxon, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish.
In response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, universities across the UK and globally have been engaged in efforts to "decolonize the curriculum." According to the National Education Union, this involves thoroughly examining British imperialism, racism, and historical inequalities, and challenging entrenched biases.
The impact of these decolonization efforts is being felt across various disciplines. For example, at SOAS University of London (formerly the School of Oriental and African Studies), classical Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle are being given less emphasis in favor of modern thinkers like an Indian-American feminist, a Nigerian gender theorist, and a Japanese Zen expert.
In 2022, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), which oversees academic standards in higher education, integrated critical race theory into its recommendations for degree programs. It encouraged courses to address colonialism, including in fields like Computing, where it suggested examining how colonial values are reflected and perpetuated, and Mathematics, where it called for a multicultural and decolonized approach to the subject. Photo by Greentreepencil, Wikimedia commons.