... to think we can extend this list a lot? Surely almost every book and film could have a content warning for something?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

The Times today reports that ^universities have started removing books from reading lists to protect students from “challenging” content and have applied trigger warnings to more than 1,000 texts, a Times investigation has found.
Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, have withdrawn books from course study lists, or made them optional, in case they cause students harm. The texts include the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, which has been “removed permanently” from a course reading list at Essex University because of concerns about graphic depictions of slavery.^

There are many serious and obvious things to say about this, but they're all in the article. The aspect that engaged me is that it gives the list in full. I am certain we could help out the university sector by pointing out other potentially distressing books.

Here are some of the examples:

The Ancient Mariner, S. T. Coleridge University of Greenwich Content warning: Animal death, human death, supernatural possession

Persuasion, Jane Austen Aberdeen Portrays views of gender and class identity that are rooted in the context of early nineteenth-century England

The Waste Land, TS Eliot Aberdeen Contains references to death and war

The Iliad, Homer Highlands and Islands Violent close combat

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens Royal Holloway Child abuse

Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson Aberdeen Kidnapping [No! I'd never have guessed it would cover this subject]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie Greenwich Contains murder [What! Shocked, I tell you, shocked]

And my favourite: The Bible York Shocking sexual violence

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/339af864-17ce-11ed-b1f4-627a202c7457 (Sorry, I don't have a share token for the article, but you can read it for nothing by signing up with your email address. That way you get to read a few free articles every month.)

So, what are your suggestions of content warnings for university students?

Here's mine:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - contains description of an eating disorder and consequent physical discomfort

There’s a democracy problem being built in if people can’t think critically about what they read.

How are these very young people with their redacted reading lists ever going to feel equipped to actually do anything about the horrific ongoing injustices in the world…. when they can’t even manage to read novels about them?
Who do they think will be running the country for them on their behalf if they rule themselves out? It’s actually very dangerous to shut your eyes and ears to difficult things for any length of time.

I’ve seen episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation carrying warnings for language when the only language in them is Capt Picard saying “What the hell’s going on?’ Or muttering “merde” under his breath, the horror the horror.

I think it would have to be pre c.21 especially teen Children's books. Harry Potter must be very triggering; so much death oh but hang on hasn't JK been cancelled? so presumably all her texts are band anyway. Hunger Games is another one.
If it wasn't so serious this thread would be brilliant, but the undercurrent of what's happening to our higher education is appalling; a population unable to think for themselves is a population which is easy to control

Little Miss Twins.

Enmeshed sibling relationships

The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Loss of a parent in infancy, violence towards animals, gun violence (all by Mr McGregor).

As for Watership Down, well....

I can't trust myself to say much on this question - sorry to sound like the DM, but - have we gone completely mad?

People need to understand that the past was a different place. They thought differently and acted differently there. To miss the most incredible achievements of literature, art and drama because an outmoded word is used, or because contemporary attitudes don't match up to our enlightened times, that's a terrible loss and harmful to our cultural life.

I cannot believe the pathetic attitudes that so many institutions (universities, BBC, National Trust etc) seem to take about 'warnings'. It's really infantilising people - the idea that we need protection from anything which might offend our delicate 21st century sensibilites. But then, we've all been conditioned to be offended as much as possible - it's surely a measure of your worth if you can find more things to be offended about than the next person. On MN alone, there are regular competitive 'more offended than you' threads.

If you have any historical perspective, you'll recognise that we are living through a sort of new puritan age - rather like the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. Or perhaps a sort of Orwellian 'newspeak' and 'Big Brother is Watching You' era. Neither of these observations are at all original, but so many people don't seem to see it. You can't say certain words now (eg actress) which used to be perfectly fine English words, yet somehow we're all supposed to accept the 'f' and 'c' words without question in broadcasting and print??? They are just different value-systems - depending totally on fashion.

I don't understand the thinking, is it to pretend that this stuff doesn't happen?

On one of the trigger warning websites, one of the listed triggers is...Harry Potter references. Even its existence is triggering.

I can certainly see the point of trigger warnings for things like suicide, death, miscarriage etc (although not banned

But anything could be "triggering", depending on your life experiences.

I don’t think any of the books have been ‘banned’, have they? Might be wrong, only read the bit of the article I could see without subscribing. But I think things can be overdramatised at times.
Literature will ideally be understood in its context, but as a teacher I think you do have to be careful with some themes. I’m an English teacher and tend to give what might be called a ‘trigger warning’ (not a phrase I’d actually use) if something like suicide, rape/sexual violence, racism or mental illness is likely to come up in the lesson. It’s no big deal, just an advance acknowledgment that some people might find the themes difficult because of their personal experience. It’s true though that you could
find something for almost every text!

Brilliant points.

If you are studying anything where you are reading fiction surely books with the power to disturb you should be top of the pile.

I remember the feeling that Beloved left me with. That book. Jesus Christ. It was amazing, I felt like I was in a walking round in a fog for days after. Utterly horrifying and challenging. The exploration of maternal love was extraordinary.

I will never read it again. It was too hard. I am so glad I read it though. How can you understand the power of literature if you avoid those things??

Little Women

Contains the death of a much loved character. Distressing scenes which some readers may find upsetting.

This is what I was thinking.
Or is it because having any kind of negative emotion is now regarded as a mental health crisis?

Exactly. Feeling temporarily down is now a condition.

We can't exist on a higher plane of positive emotion permanently. And when we don't, we're not ill.

@CulturePigeon you talk about ‘delicate 21st century sensibilities’ and people being ‘conditioned to be offended’ as if these are part of a trend that should be sneered at and swept aside. However I think these generalisations can be a bit too easy. If you were a 17 year old girl who’d been sexually abused you might find the Handmaid’s Tale pretty tough - not because of your over-delicate sensitivities but because of your traumatic lived experience. If you were a young black person who’d been racially
abused you may not be comfortable with the ‘n word’ popping up in a Tennessee Williams play, however much someone explained its context to you.
That doesn’t mean that those texts should be avoided or banned, but being careful isn’t the same as being ‘offended’ in the way I think you’re using the term.

And of course you can say ‘actress’; some people just feel you don’t need the gender differentiation.

I read that book as a child. I think maybe 10/11? Parents let me read anything in the house which was a lot.

I loved it. Not because I understood the themes but because I was in awe that a book could be narrated by somebody who had one foot outside of reality and the challenge of figuring out what was true. It was a great learning experience. Unreliable narrators remain one of my favourite literary devices to this day.

Shush, don't let the truth and common sense get in the way of mumsnet frothing about political correctness gone mad wokeness

Of course its overstated, it's the conservative press. It is still worrying, books that have the potential to rattle you should surely to god be the number one priority for these courses not optional extras.

If you are studying it surely having a strong emotional reaction to literature should be encouraged not avoided.

I've just looked across my bookshelf in an attempt to find something funny to add, but realised that EVERY BOOK I own from Terry Pratchett to the Buffy spin off series would probably get cancelled for something.

On the other hand, my dad could have done with a trigger warning when he bought me Jean M Auels "Valley of Horses" as a 10 year old because we had a long road trip coming up, I liked horses and he'd promised me a new book for the journey 😆

At least two books have been removed. One temporarily and one permanently.

• *Details here -

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/09/universities-admit-purge-challenging-books-protect-students/

It's just 'frothing' though, right? (Incidently, I'm surprised that that word doesn't have a trigger warning).

I've just realised a previous post of mine was cut off. This is what it meant to say!

I can certainly see the point of trigger warnings for things like suicide, death, miscarriage etc (although not banned) but some of the trigger warnings listed on some of the websites are somewhat odd. One which jumped out was 'historical age gap depictions'.

I think the problem with this is that the most powerful and memorable literature is also disturbing - the whole point of it is that it creates an emotional response in the reader.

Like a PP, I read Beloved by Toni Morrison recently - it is astonishingly powerful and novels by black women (especially Nobel Prize for literature winning black women) are few and far between. It is hugely distressing and triggering. It is still an amazing book.

If books are to be deselected from reading lists (not just trigger warnings) because they have the power to disturb, people will not actually get to really see how powerful and world changing literature can be.

Likewise most of the "Swallows and Amazons" series.

If you were a 17 year old girl who’d been sexually abused you might find the Handmaid’s Tale pretty tough

but it should be up to the course tutors, and the student themselves, to check what the content is. And if there are (as it seems from some pp) websites where you can check a book for triggers - at 17 it is not too much to ask that they do that? Blanket banning in case there is possibly maybe someone in a class of 30 or a course of 60, who might be triggered is batshit.