Warning: This material may trigger outrage and/or disbelief.
A group of Columbia University students is suggesting that classical mythology taught in the school’s core curriculum is too “triggering” for some individuals to “feel safe” around in the classroom.
The four students, who are part of the university’s student Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board, penned an op-ed for the school paper the Columbia Spectator that discusses why Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” — a poem that spans 15 books and hundreds of stories from classic mythology — deserves a trigger warning.
In particular, the students argue that the narrative poem contains depictions of sexual assault that can be “triggering” to students, like one individual mentioned who “described being triggered” and feeling unsafe when reading the material for her Lit Hum class.
The students write:
Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.
The writers go on to argue that faculty be properly alerted to “potential trigger warnings” and receive instruction on “how to support triggered students.”
Even Ovid can’t escape trigger warnings. Perhaps he should retreat into a safe space before taking offense.
H/T Reason
