Posted on 12/12/2016 9:54:44 AM PST by Red Badger
Students at the University of Pennsylvania removed a portrait of Shakespeare from a prominent location in the school’s English department after complaining that he did not represent a diverse range of writers.
The Department had previously voted to remove the painting, so students took matters into their own hands, replacing the portrait with one of an African American writer and delivering Shakespeare to the Department Chair's office.
Students at the University of Pennsylvania removed a portrait of Shakespeare from a prominent location in the school’s English department after complaining that he did not represent a diverse range of writers.
In fact, the chair of the department confirmed in a statement that the portrait was stripped from the wall by his students as “a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department,” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
Additionally, Department Chair Jed Esty explained that the portrait was “delivered” to his office and replaced with a photograph of Audre Lorde, a celebrated African American feminist and author, in a move that was in intended to send a message to Esty, whose department agreed to replace the portrait several years ago.
Esty went on to confirm that the portrait of Lorde will remain in Shakespeare’s place until he and his colleagues can reach an agreement on what to do next, announcing the establishment of a “working group” to help monitor the process.
According to a statement released by the school’s English department, the working group will help “declare and defend [its] departmental mission in the current political climate,” with Esty noting that the group will “initiate an open and collaborative conversation among students, faculty, and employees in English to come up with ideas for that public space.”
Notably, the school’s “Code of Student Conduct” explicitly prohibits students from “stealing, damaging, defacing, or misusing the property or facilities of the university or of others.”
Campus Reform reached out to the school for a comment on the matter, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
I guess a statue of some rap “artist” up from the rat-and-garbage-strewn gutter would be more to their liking and more up their alley. They are not even capable of appreciating the genius of Shakespeare, more the idiot them. How dare they take upon themselves to assume the role of arbiter of what constitutes representation and what doesn’t as far as English literature? That’s throwing pearls before swine, surely.
Shakespeare was way of ahead of his time when it came to LGBTQ issues...
Rosalind/Ganymeade from “As You Like It”
Male actors often cross-dressed and played female roles.
Perhaps they should learn from Lieber and Stoller:
Yakety Yak
The Coasters
Songwriters: Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller
Yakety Yak lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don’t get no spendin’ cash
If you don’t scrub that kitchen floor
You ain’t gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (Don’t talk back)
Just finish cleanin’ up your room
Let’s see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don’t go out Friday night
Yakety yak (Don’t talk back)
You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin’ that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (Don’t talk back)
Don’t you give me no dirty looks
Your father’s hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain’t got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (Don’t talk back)
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
How very Kabuki of them!~.................
Oh NOES, these snowflakes wouldn't know from manual labor or doing chores, I'll wager. I worked MY way through college; my parents only paid my board and books. If they had to do that, they wouldn't have time to dream up infantile displays of tantrum.
Entirely appropriate that the greatest chronicler of the human condition should be replaced by someone most people have never heard of. It well reflects the culture, beliefs and mores of the Penn English department.
Shakespeare and the King James Bible standardized the English language.
Those English majors finally got rid of that daily reminder that they can’t spell his name correctly.
“STUDENTS”...huh?
These aren’t student for they are nothing more than America hating leftist trouble-makers and rabble. We can blame Political Correctness totally upon the shoulders of our institutes of “so called” higher education (or in today’s truisms...indoctrination).
The cancer of higher education has now contorted and ruined secondary education and is filtering down into middle and lower school systems.
When will it stop? Hopefully with Trump things just might start to turn around when law (all laws) will be enforced as originally written and with NO EXCEPTIONS!
It’s the English Department, stupid! When are these faking students going to be ignored?
Idiotic. Shakespeare’s works have not only been translated into many languages, they have been successfully adapted into vastly different cultures which include:
King Lear- Ran (Japan, Medieval Japan, 1985)
Anthony and Cleopatra- Kannaki (India (Malayalam) Rural India, 2002)
Hamlet- Throne of Blood (aka Cobweb Castle or Kumonosu-jo) (Japan, Medieval Japan, 1957); The Banquet, (China, 10th Century China, 2006)
Taming of the Shrew- 10 Things I Hate About You (US, Suburban America, 1999); Deliver Us from Eva (US, African American, 2003)
It took me a few min to compile this list. Or are they all cultural appropriations now?
It’s only Cultural Appropriations if you take it from a minority, not the other way ‘round.................
I quit watching shakespere last night when the queen was black
Being black, she couldn’t possibly understand and portray accurately a white English royal
Inmates ...asylum
No English Lit in the English Lit Department!.................
Maybe they should have put up a portrait of Dr. Seuss.................
A Dartmouth grad from days when they were the Indians. Now that they are the “Big Green” I guess that does include a degree of diversity.
BTW—Green Eggs and Ham is supposed to be based on Seuss’s experience during Freshman Orientation as done at Dartmouth in the 20’s.
“Tobe or not tobe - dat’s da question.”
Expell all involved, without a refund. Put the picture back. Repeat as necessary. Problem solved
Absolutely agree.
Our local HS mascot is The Big Green Indians of Choctawhatchee High School!..............
So are you accepting the arguments of the U Penn protestors?
In the original performances the Queen would have been played by a male actor as women were not permitted to act in Shakespeare’s time. By your argument, Shakespeare could not even write the character as he is both male and a commoner and so could non understand a female royal character.
Who plays what character is less relevant than the fact is that Shakespeare captured universal human themes (love, jealousy, greed, honor, duty, revenge, etc...) that translate into all cultures. Which is why Akira Kurosawa and L.L. Cool J both found inspiration in his works.
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