{"id":331239,"date":"2017-10-19T23:38:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T22:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cambridge-university-students-given-trigger-warnings-in-case-shakespeare-upsets-them-rt-uk\/"},"modified":"2017-10-19T23:38:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T22:38:14","slug":"cambridge-university-students-given-trigger-warnings-in-case-shakespeare-upsets-them-rt-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cambridge-university-students-given-trigger-warnings-in-case-shakespeare-upsets-them-rt-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Cambridge University students given \u2018trigger warnings\u2019 in case Shakespeare upsets them \u2014 RT UK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>\n<p><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 19 Oct, 2017 15:13 <\/time><\/p>\n<p>        Students at one of Britain\u2019s most prestigious universities are reportedly being sheltered from sexual and violent scenes in the plays of William Shakespeare.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__text text  js-mediator-article\">\n<p>Advocates of the \u2018trigger warnings\u2019 \u2013 alerting readers to potentially distressing material \u2013 say they protect people from the possibility of being upset, while critics argue that they curtail academic freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming both innocence and lack of knowledge of the bard\u2019s most famous works, lecturers at Cambridge University have introduced the warnings for <em>\u201cpotentially distressing topics.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>English-literature undergraduates were apparently cautioned before a lecture on Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors. According to insiders at the top university, warnings were posted in the English Faculty\u2019s \u2018Notes on Lectures\u2019 document.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sZjkUBTIsgo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Not everyone is impressed by the move.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/405025-lavinia-woodward-judge-investigated\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2017.09\/thumbnail\/59ce3954fc7e935e228b4567.jpg\" alt=\"Lavinia Woodward \u00a9 Facebook\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>\u201cIf a student of English Literature doesn&#8217;t know that Titus Andronicus contains scenes of violence, they shouldn\u2019t be on the course,\u201d<\/em> David Crilly, artistic director at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, told the Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis degree of sensitivity will inevitably curtail academic freedom. If the academic staff are concerned they might say something students find uncomfortable they will avoid doing it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Critics have called the warnings <em>\u201cfundamentally dishonest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe have to encourage students to be able to face that, even when they find they\u2019re awkward and difficult for all kinds of good reasons,\u201d<\/em> Mary Beard, a Professor of Classics at Cambridge, previously said.<\/p>\n<p>Cambridge University denied having a trigger-warning policy.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSome lecturers indicate that some sensitive material will be covered in a lecture by informing the English Faculty Admin staff,\u201d<\/em> a spokesman told The Times.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis is entirely at the lecturer\u2019s own discretion and is in no way indicative of a Faculty wide policy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/407218-cambridge-shakespeare-trigger-warnings\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published time: 19 Oct, 2017 15:13 Students at one of Britain\u2019s most prestigious universities are reportedly being sheltered from sexual and violent scenes in the plays of William Shakespeare. Advocates of the \u2018trigger warnings\u2019 \u2013 alerting readers to potentially distressing material \u2013 say they protect people from the possibility of being upset, while critics argue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":331240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-331239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}