Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales received a trigger warning from the University of Nottingham due to its “expressions of Christian faith.”
The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century, describes a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
The warning was placed on a learning module called “Chaucer and his Contemporaries,” Mail on Sunday learned after filing a Freedom of Information request.
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Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, told the outlet, “Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said in a statement that the Bible is “foundational” to “understanding the history of English literature.”
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Williams added that “[t]rigger warnings for Christian themes in literature are demeaning to the Christian faith and stifle the academic progress of our students,” noting the censoring “expressions of the Christian faith is to erase our literary heritage. True education engages and fosters understanding, not avoidance.”
A university spokesman said it “champions diversity, and its student body is made up of people of all faiths and none.” The spokesman added that the “content notice does not assume that all our students come from a Christian background, but even those students who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview they will encounter in Chaucer and others alienating and strange.”
Nottingham University’s Catholic Society issued a statement condemning the trigger warning. The group wrote that the warning sends a “deeply concerning message to all students that Christian beliefs- which are central not only to many University students, but also to the intellectual and cultural foundations of English history – are somehow offensive or harmful to others.”
The group added that the “implications that Christian values are uniquely problematic is a severe form of discrimination that has no place in academia.”
This article originally appeared on American Faith, and is reposted with permission.
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