Yes, we should spend £800k of taxpayers’ money on ‘decolonising’ Robert Louis Stevenson
No surprise that the news we’re paying academics to expose colonial stereotypes in literary classics has wound up the anti-woke mob. But, argues Katie Edwards, it’s not as daft they think...
What’s the latest on crazy so-called “wokery”? Let me see… ah yes, it seems to be the news that the academic funding body UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded researchers at the University of Edinburgh £809,334 for a three-year project called “Remediating Stevenson: Decolonising Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific Fiction through Graphic Adaptation, Arts Education and Community Engagement.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly in the current febrile political climate – where even hot cross buns can cause a stir – this news has rankled in some quarters. The gist of the complaints seems to be that studying colonialism in some of the most influential literary works of all time, by one of the world’s most famous authors, is a waste of money.
Well, I suppose whether or not it’s “wokery” or an important issue for academic investigation depends on whether you care about lives being negatively affected by said colonial literary tropes.
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