University of Leicester post-colonial literature professor Corinne Fowler said in her new book that the British countryside is a “terrain of inequalities.” Incidentally, Fowler has been responsible for a leftist push inside the National Trust – which is in charge of heritage conservation.
In her book titled
Green Unpleasant Land, the professor argued that botanical knowledge “has had deep colonial resonances” as many British estates were partly financed by colonialism and slavery. She continued that the scientific classification of plants had “engaged in the same hierarchies of ‘race ” that justified colonial occupation and slavery. Thus, Fowler posited that “gardens are matters of class and privilege.”
Even though it may not boast any dreaming spires or belong to the Russell Group of leading universities, there was a time not so very long ago when Leicester University punched well above the weight of its provincial rivals.
Named Britain’s ‘University of the Year’ in 2008, with a heritage that encompassed great thinkers such as novelist Malcolm Bradbury, a former student, poet Philip Larkin, one of its old librarians, and Sir David Attenborough, who lived on the attractive campus as a child, it was home to nearly 23,000 students.
Exactly a decade ago, Leicester came 17th in the Guardian University Guide’s national league tables, and was also top university for ‘student satisfaction’ outside Oxbridge.
Does this look unpleasant ? Academic signed up by the National Trust to lecture us on the evils behind our most glorious estates says GARDENING has its roots in racial injustice
Professor of Post-Colonial Literature at University of Leicester, published work examining links between British countryside, racism, slavery and colonial past
Claimed cherished national pastime of gardening had roots in racial injustic
At the centre of the ‘culture war’ within National Trust after ‘outed’ many of the properties belonging for their links to slavery and Britain’s colonial past.
Who volunteers to be lectured by children? spectator.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectator.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Colonial Countryside projects looks into links of 11 trust properties to slave trade Child advisory boards set up to assist the trust s staff with their training so they can explain the ties of their properties to slave trade and British empire
The project involves nine historians working with 100 primary school children
Last month, the trust was accused of bias over the team of historians it hired