Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 102

ARTICLE #7 | 103
102 | JADE
MARIA FLOOD THE CHALLENGES OF A DIVERSE CURRICULUM: A CASE STUDY FROM THE HUMANITIES
our being “involved” through a process we might call “identification”,
clearly depends on a fundamental separateness and distinctness of
perspective—a prior, radical “non-identification”, as it were’ (Harrison
2003: 89). Our ability to perceive ourselves as separate from the text
allows us to engage more fully—if we are too close, intellectual or
emotional engagement can be difficult or overwhelming. To be able
to sympathise or understand a character or their actions we must
feel ourselves in some way to be distanced from their situation; it is
not our condition, but one we can understand. Collins, P. H. 2000. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the
Politics of Empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Conclusions
In this article, I have focused primarily on the challenges for students
when introducing them to diverse curricula. I have also chiefly
presented students as largely undifferentiated, but of course, an
individual’s identity and profile will alter their encounter with a text.
Moreover, the challenges for teachers are also highly significant,
particularly given that the majority of staff working in HE in the UK
are from racially and ethnically non-diverse backgrounds. Some
teaching staff may not feel comfortable teaching works that do
not speak to their own identities, knowledge, or experience. These
absences thus point to very fruitful avenues for further study.
Ultimately, teaching is not a rational, predictable or easily controlled
process. There remains what Ellsworth calls a ‘space between’:
between the teacher teaching and the learner learning, as well as
between what the teachers thinks the text is saying, and how the
student brings their own intellectual insights and lived experience to
bear on their interpretations (Ellsworth 1997: 32). Perhaps one of the
most rewarding aspects of teaching and learning through diverse,
non-canonical curricula is that this ‘space between’ is consistently
foregrounded. Rather than ‘repeating the status quo or utopian
visions’ (Kumashiro 2002: 79), diverse curricula open a shifting and
fluid space between students and teachers, between the canon
and its outside, between relatability/identification and disruption/
non-identification, and between harmful societal stereotypes and
challenging new ways of understanding social and cultural difference.
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About the Author
Dr. Maria Flood joined Keele in 2016 as Lecturer in Film Studies in the
School of Humanities. At Keele, she delivers the following modules:
Race and Sexuality on Screen (Level 6), World Cinemas in the 21st
Century (Level 6), Gender and the Cinematic Gaze (Level 5), and
Introduction to European Cinema (Level 4).
Before Keele, she was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at
Cornell University in the School of Romance Studies, delivering
modules on North African and Francophone cinema at undergraduate
and postgraduate levels.