When I first arrived in Edinburgh a few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see how queer-friendly the city was. Whenever I took a walk around, I saw pride flags hanging from apartments and people who were openly and unabashedly queer in the way that they presented themselves. I also loved how supportive the student community was at the university; all the clubs and societies stood up for LGBTQ+ rights and fought hard for equal representation.
Being a queer person from India, I was not used to having this much acceptance around me, and I basked in it. I couldn’t wait to start classes because I was certain I would be a part of the same encouraging environment and would have the opportunity to learn more about where my community comes from and where we’re headed.
Unfortunately, this ended up being largely untrue. I study Comparative Literature, and I was hoping for a syllabus that would emphasise the significance of cultural differences in an intersectional manner that would bring in queer culture as an undeniable part of our collective identity. I was hoping we would learn more about the queer voices that have paved the way to where we are now. However, while the syllabus has been created in a manner that allows for open academic discussions that are inclusive and encourage differences of opinion, queerness has hardly been incorporated at all.
Despite having a significant proportion of students who identify as queer, and the rest as allies of the queer community, we are yet to study more about queer literature and history in my course. The syllabus does not focus on giving insight into whether the works we study have been birthed by queer authors and how their identity may have influenced their work. The inherent politics of queerness is rarely discussed, and students are left to their own devices to learn more about this if they want to.
Despite the open-mindedness of the student body and our willingness to study queer history and art, the university’s curriculum is hardly reflective of our collective interest. We continue to learn within a cis-heteronormative structure which assumes an artist’s sexuality and/or gender identity and pushes this onto the students who encounter them.
Queering the syllabus remains an unresolved problem at the university. Only when we are introduced to queerness structurally, through educational institutions, will we be able to transform our learning experience and move beyond understanding queerness as an aesthetic.
“Oscar Wilde – Napoleon Sarony” by DPMS is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.