Criticism of Term
Critics of the term have alleged that it aims to reject people or ideas on the grounds of race or sex, and that the term may encourage academics to exclude the valuable ideas of those who are white, male, and dead from college curricula. The term is often used in a pejorative manner, in the context of specific regret that the contributions of those who are contemporary, non-white, or female rarely receive an equal amount of notice in academic references.
Classicist Bernard Knox made direct reference to this term when he delivered his 1992 Jefferson Lecture (the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities). Knox used the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males", as the title of his lecture and his subsequent book of the same name, in both of which Knox defended the continuing relevance of classical Greek culture to modern society.
Read more about this topic: Dead White Males
Famous quotes containing the words criticism and/or term:
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)