Scholars Slam Nottingham U. for Content Warning on ‘The Canterbury Tales’
“expressions of Christian faith”
This is so ridiculous. This is a piece of classic literature.
The College Fix reports:
Scholars blast Nottingham U. for content warning on ‘The Canterbury Tales’ due to Christian themes
Nottingham University has assigned Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” a content notice for its “expressions of Christian faith.”
This move has sparked debate, with critics arguing that Christian themes are inherently part of medieval literature and should be expected by students studying texts from this period.
Chaucer’s work, published in the 1400s, is “one of the most famous works of medieval literature” and social satire, according to The Becket Story, a University of York resource on medieval authors. Chaucer’s story tells of a religious pilgrimage to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury.
Emma Thorne, a UoN spokesperson, told The College Fix via email the school did not issue trigger warnings but rather “content notices” about the topics “they will be studying so they know what themes are covered and can speak to their tutors about any questions or issues beforehand.”
While Thorne did not explain the difference between trigger warnings and content notices, the UK’s Newcastle University notes that it uses the term content warning instead because it is “a gentle indication of when content is of a sensitive nature and might cause distress.”
“A trigger warning could give the impression that an action or reaction is required or inevitable; it also is more alarming in tone,” the university states.
Citing Nottingham University’s statement on the new warnings, Thorne told The Fix, “Even those students who are practicing Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview they will encounter in Chaucer and others alienating and strange.”
“All students may appreciate knowing in advance about some perspectives that will be covered, for example, the anti-Islamic sentiments of some medieval writers,” she stated.
“This content notice does not discourage students from encountering any of this material, but enables questions to be raised, so as to set that material in a properly critical framework,” Thorne stated.
The school’s notices were attached to a module on Chaucer and other writers from medieval times. While the warnings alert students to violence, mental illness, and expressions of Christian faith, they make no comments on themes of antisemitism or sexually explicit materials that are present in the story.
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I’m still triggered every time I see a warning at the beginning of a Netflix/Amazon video that it contains adult content. Stuff like “language” and “`sexual situations” one might expect. “Violence” rings a bit false from a generation brought up on everything from Matt Dillon to Friday The 13th. But “smoking?” Absolutely absurd. Unless you were watching nothing but Captain Kangaroo or Salty Brine’s Shack (scratch that — Popeye smoked!), smoking was a part of 95% of the shows on TV, and an integral part of the drama or plot of about 20% of them. Hypocritically, I barely remember seeing any such warnings about “drug use,” which is rampant in these videos while still being formally illegal, in contrast with smoking.
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