After significant media and online criticism of the decision to place more than 200 content warnings on several Shakespeare plays, the University of West England has now issued a statement defending the move. Although the story appears silly and superficial at first, it signifies something deeper about the Bristol institution’s approach to teaching and its attitude towards students.
The controversy began when The Sun reported the news of the added content warnings. Soon, a bevy of articles and comments emerged, mocking “snowflake” students and criticising the University for treating them “like three year olds”.
Indeed, some of the warnings added to the descriptions of the plays range from trite to inadvertently satirical. For example, Macbeth received a label of “family trauma”, which seems a bit of an understatement.
Likewise, Twelfth Night got the full decolonisation treatment with warnings of “portrayal of race”, “empire”, and “colonialism”. Readers of Romeo and Juliet are advised to beware of “suicide”, “death”, and “mourning”. With such warnings for the classic tragedy, a “spoiler alert” would surely have been warranted as well.
The University of West England defended these decisions, saying that they had been explicitly requested by the students. “We agreed to include content warnings in this case to enable our students to engage with the materials with advance knowledge of the content”, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Specifically, the demands had come from students “with sensory processing issues and experiences of trauma”, the UWE spokesperson said. However, the labels go way beyond the traditional warnings of “flashing lights” for people with epilepsy, or the usual evening news alerts that some viewers might find the following images distressing.
Whose “experiences of trauma” are being sheltered by warnings of “references to wild animal attack” in A Winter’s Tale or the “extreme weather” in The Tempest. In fairness, the latter also received a label for “drunkenness”, which might be intended to shield the emotions of hungover students.
Of course, UWE is perfectly free to decide what labels to slap on which plays in their syllabi, although one shudders to think what would have happen to the classics department if the same students took a course in Greek tragedies – the warnings for Oedipus would be longer than the play!
However, the story is more than a silly controversy about overly sensitive students. The fact that the University decided to acquiesce to these demands is telling of its attitude towards teaching and scholarship.
As has been noted many times over the past decade, university is a place where you are meant to encounter new, difficult, and even unsettling ideas. Expressing concerns over certain aspects of a book or a play is fine. In fact, it is good; it is an invitation to further conversation.
If a young student feels uneasy with the portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, for example, the solution is not to slap a label of “antisemitism” on the play and allow Jewish students to excuse themselves from class if they feel uncomfortable. Rather, a good teacher would ask further questions and encourage a discussion among students.
As readers of this play will know, the character of Shylock is complex and can be understood in multiple ways. His “do we not bleed?”-monologue has been interpreted both as a critique of antisemitism and as a revelation of his devious nature. A comparison of each of these readings adds depth to the play, even if the surrounding conversation is at times uncomfortable.
Like all great literature, Shakespeare’s plays deal with brutal themes of death, betrayal, suicide, and war. A talented author will make the exploration of each of these deeply uncomfortable or even painful. Adding warnings for all sorts of potential offensive material is a sign that the UWE is not truly interested in exploring these themes with its students, but rather in shying away from them in favour of easier, more agreeable topics. Trigger warnings also forestall free classroom discussion, by priming students to adopt particular attitudes towards the text in question.
This approach is indeed doing a disservice to the students, even if they do not themselves realise it. Shakespeare asks profound questions about the human condition and offers excellent insights into the historical context in which the plays were produced.
As the character Professor Sloane half-shouts at his own class of literature students in John William’s novel Stoner: “Mr. Shakespeare speaks to you across three hundred years […] Do you hear him? What does he say?” What a pity to shut one’s ears and refuse to listen simply because dear old William used a bad word.