Laudator Temporis Acti

Craig Simpson, "University cancels Anglo-Saxon ‘to decolonise’ the curriculum. Masters course renamed as academics worry term suggests ‘nationalist narratives’," The Telegraph (31 August 2024):

The term Anglo-Saxon has been removed from a University’s module titles to tackle “nationalist narratives”.

The University of Nottingham offers leading courses in Anglo-Saxon history and literature and is the only university in the country to offer a Viking Studies course.

But in a move to “decolonise the curriculum”, professors have renamed a masters course in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies as Viking and Early Medieval English Studies.

A module within the programme titled “Research Methods in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies” has also had the “Anglo-Saxon” term removed in favour of “Early Medieval English”.

It follows a similar move in the United States, where academics in particular have campaigned against the term “Anglo-Saxon” because it suggests a distinct, native Englishness.

The terminology of “Early mediaeval England” is the preferred replacement for “Anglo- Saxon” by academics concerned that the latter has become a phrase used by racists surrounding white identity.

These have largely been based in the US, where the term has been used to describe those descended from white early settlers.

The university has also said it is seeking to “problematize the term ‘Viking’” in its tuition.

An English literature module “A Tale of Seven Kingdoms: Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age England from Bede to Alfred the Great” was also renamed “Early mediaeval England from Bede to Alfred the Great”.

It comes amid concerns over the connections of “race, empire, Nazism” to Norse culture and mythology.

The Nazis made use of Norse runic figures in their iconography, including the stylised “S” figures of the SS.

The move follows a pledge made in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests to decolonise the curriculum, a term denoting a move away from Western-centred material and the dominance of “white voices” in academia.

Etc.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson, who comments:

And so it goes on. Perhaps England itself, OE Ænglaland, land of the Angles, will be next to be "problematized". What might be an acceptable alternative? Perhaps 'land of the many peoples', or in Old English ‘monigra folca land’, Mongreland for short. Let the witanegemot decide it.

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• Anglo-Saxon
• Use of a Forbidden Ethnonym