Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
English Language and Literature Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Pamela Caughie
The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Pamela Caughie
English: Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay asks, when does our effort to avoid offending students interfere with our ability to teach them? Rehearsing conflicts over language and terminology, over who can speak and what can be said, from my four-decade career as a literature professor, critical theorist, and gender scholar, I confront contemporary efforts to censor certain words, to prohibit certain kinds of inquiry, and to limit who can speak about certain subjects by placing recent incidents in relation to previous debates in academia and the public sphere. The university classroom and scholarly peer-reviewed journals have long served as spaces where established viewpoints can …