Student Learning Experiences

Our staff and students collaborate and learn from each other to better understand race equality to ensure we all learn in an inclusive and representative community.

Teaching and Student Research

Two knights on horseback in a glad face one another with spears in hand

Teaching Renaissance Literature and Race

"What does an early modern literary scholar have to say, what do early modern literary studies have to say, to Black History Month? Black writers are notable on English Renaissance literature modules by their absence....."

Student interpretation of Grayson Perry's artwork — Student interpretation of Grayson Perry's tapestry, ‘you could lay it all out for a picnic’

Enriching the teaching of Black British literature through art

"As a student in London in 1997 I went to see the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy. The show featured pieces from the Charles Saatchi collection by YBAs (young British artists)....."

Dutch Studies SURE project

Sheffield's SURE scheme offers a summer research scholarship for undergraduate students. Catherine Newell secured funding for her project looking at the representation of slavery in museums in Liverpool, Amsterdam and Brussels.

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In search of Marie-Antoinette’s adopted black son

Morgan McArthur (School of Languages and Cultures student), was granted a SURE research award for her project to find out more about the life and death of Jean Amilcar, a black Senegalese slave boy ‘gifted’ to queen Marie-Antoinette as an adopted son.

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Race Equality Work in the Department of Philosophy

In 2021-2022, I worked alongside Charlotte Flores as a race equality intern in the philosophy department at Sheffield University. We saw this internship as foundational to help further race equality and decolonisation in the philosophy department, but also the wider discipline, the faculty and the university more broadly.

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Calais: A learning Journey

A short documentary film created by University of Sheffield students led by Dr Sophie Watt, Amanda Tavares, Dr Katy Hunter and James Pearson, School of Languages and Cultures, in partnership with photographer Elisa Larvego. The film explores migration, refugees in Calais and alternative forms of representation.

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Teaching the legacy of colonialism: Haiti a case study

Sophie Watt’s chapter in Teaching Hati: Strategies for Creating New Narratives, examines the ways in which the teaching of the 2004 coup in Hati allows for a deeper understanding of current Haitian politics and neo-imperialism. This pedagogical approach also offers a more general understanding of the legacy of colonialism practices and ongoing forms of oppression.

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Decolonising the Curriculum: In Conversation

This magazine is designed to spark a conversation about what Decolonising the Curriculum means to staff teaching in the Arts and Humanities at the University of Sheffield.

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Decolonising the Arts and Humanities Curriculum: Thoughts from the Faculty

During Black History Month, Cathy Shrank spoke to Rachel van Duyvenbode and Richard Steadman-Jones about their experience of decolonising the curriculum.

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Student voice

A photograph and illustration of Maya Angelou

From Maya Angelou to Toni Morrison; the female pioneers of the Black Literary Movement

Religion and beauty standards. Two topics that are often not spoken about in length when exploring the Black woman’s experience, a fact that needs rectifying.