Decolonising the Discipline
The Institute of English Studies is a partner of the Decolonising the Discipline working group.
The Institute of English Studies is proud to be a partner of the Decolonising the Discipline working group, which shares good practice and innovation in English Studies. This group was launched at English: Shared Futures online in June 2020, and stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign and with anti-racist action around the world. The need to stand against racism in all its forms and to decolonise our academic structures is not new, but the urgency of this need is underlined by recent events including the violent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in the US and the stark inequalities that Covid-19 deaths among Black and racialized minorities have highlighted in the UK.
Decolonising the Discipline is a collaborative initiative undertaken jointly by colleagues at the English Association, the Institute of English Studies, the University of East Anglia, the Postcolonial Studies Association and University English. It aims to develop platforms for discipline-wide conversations that can foster and support collaborative action across English literature, language and creative writing.
Decolonising the Discipline aims to draw attention to the breadth of activities and stakeholders that are gathered under the banner of English Studies. The group are committed to building a network of interventions, to gathering and sharing ideas, and to providing strategies and resources for collective and individual action.
The Institute of English Studies TIDE Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Sarah Pyke, responsible for developing our Toolkit for Diversity and Inclusion in English Studies (TIDE), will work closely with this group.
For further information, please find the Decolonising the Discipline website here. You will find links to shared resources, publications, events, a blog, all related to sharing decolonising initiatives and practice.
Find out more: IES and diversity and inclusion