As the Prufrock newsletter noted Monday morning, students at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies have asked for a “decolonized” curriculum—lighter on the dead white guys, in other words.
It would seem safe to assume they’re after the usual suspects: “Plato, Descartes, Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell,” per The Daily Mail. Indeed, in their statement, “Decolonising SOAS: Confronting the White Institution” the SOAS student union lists goals and grievances: among them, “To make sure that the majority of the philosophers on our courses are from the Global South or it’s [sic] diaspora.” The statement adds that “[i]f white philosophers are required,” so should be “the colonial context in which so called ‘Enlightenment’ philosophers wrote within.”
And yet, the curricular offerings at SOAS, available online for all to see, are about as multicultural as they come. If we’re to judge by their published reading lists, the undergraduate philosophy program’s core requirements—the foundation for a stated mission of “inter-cultural approach to systems of belief and thought”—already favor more recent works and contemporary treatments of ancient thinkers over classical primary texts.
“Students in the BA World Philosophies are absolutely required to engage with European philosophers alongside, and in dialogue with non-European intellectual traditions,” Sian Hawthorn, a lecturer and World Philosophies program convenor, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
To borrow from another dead white guy, these students—and their critics—appear to be tilting at windmills.
Sir Richard Scruton told the Sunday Mail the students’ demands merely reveal “ignorance and a determination not to overcome that ignorance.” He added that “clearly they haven’t investigated what they mean by white philosophy.”
The student union’s uncritical request for a critical colonial approach reveals their failure to think through their claims in the first place. And a quick look through SOAS curricula further shows, unsurprisingly, these students may not have been paying much attention.
Courses like the philosophy program’s second-year requirement “Anglo-European Philosophies and Critical Dialogue: Hermeneutics and Beyond” could easily set off a highly-sensitive progressive’s radar. Its key primary texts are works by white men (Nietzsche, Foucault)—and some of them (Vattimo, Agamben) not yet dead.
But such a critique rests on a shallow, and apparently anticipated, appraisal. Lest the reading list come across too “Eurocentric,” the course description carries the following disclaimer: “Despite the overwhelming presence of western theorists, the course aims at fostering a positive dialogue with the diversity of other philosophies and religious experiences.”
SOAS administrators are preparing a response to “the inaccurate reports in the media concerning the debates around ‘decolonizing the curriculum’,” according to Hawthorn.
And it doesn’t appear they’re leaping accommodate to students’ requests.
“I would firmly resist dropping philosophers or historians just because it was fashionable,” as Erica Hunter, head of the Religions and Philosophies department, told the Telegraph.
