Opening Up English Literature: Too privileged, too male, too white? by

Opening Up English Literature: Too privileged, too male, too white? by https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet en-us 2022-03-24 13:53:56 UTC 2022-04-06 12:35:53 UTC hello@padlet.com swhite323 https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2127067800 Two hundred years ago the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote ‘The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the velocity [smoothness] of the skin, or the termination of the sacrum [tail bone], are reasons [...] insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. [...] The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?’ Was Bentham so far ahead of his time, that contemporary humans have still not caught up with him?
]]> 2022-04-03 10:33:03 UTC https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2127067800 Uncomfortable literature niall_m https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2131544312 Have you ever read a literary text (like a novel, poem, short story, play…) that has made you feel uncomfortable? What was uncomfortable-making about it? Can an uncomfortable text be useful?]]> 2022-04-05 22:32:16 UTC https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2131544312 Character journeys lhiggins61 https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2132146535 Adjoah Andoh (Actor and Co-Director of Richard II at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, 2019) told journalist Belinda Otas:

What I love about this play [Richard II] and about Shakespeare is that he takes someone, who at the beginning of the play, you might think is reprehensible but by the end of the play when he has lost everything that the world values; status, wealth and power, you find a valuable human being who understands his value is in himself not in his stuff.

Do you think it’s important to study literature that makes us think about how people can change?

]]> 2022-04-06 07:23:09 UTC https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2132146535 He was ahead of his time - I believe for as long as humans live, we will unfortunately always feel in power/on top of every other living thing in the world, although I'm not sure why https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2132515813 2022-04-06 12:31:02 UTC https://padlet.com/thinkhuman/englishliteraturepadlet/wish/2132515813