Week 4 Summary

In this last week of the course we’ve been considering what decolonisation might mean for the arts and humanities. We have thought about how to decolonise subject areas that were born out of the colonial project, and how a more global perspective of disciplines like history and modern languages may be necessary for a truly decolonial process.

Some of the key areas we have covered this week include:

• whether or not decolonisation is still a useful term, or if we should replace it with other concepts like redistribution

• the relationship between the institution of English literary studies and the drive to produce ‘the ideal colonial subject’ of empire.

• decolonising the mind and the way languages are valued

• the importance of working with students and communities as active participants in learning and the creation of knowledge

• the role of archives in producing ideas of what counts as knowledge

We hope you enjoyed Week 4 of this course. In our next and final step, we will offer you some tools and strategies to put your learning on this FutureLearn course into practice.