In my last product I want to discuss Izzy’s excellent presentation on the influence of the Rhodes Scholarship on the academic study of race. I chose this presentation because I honestly didn’t even know what the Rhode’s scholarship was until I head Izzy bring it up during tutorial. I actually found having the presentations uploaded online was a very constructive way for me to learn and remember what was being said in each presentation.
What I found most interesting about the presentation, is that Izzy’s project heavily relies on lived experience and how the experiences of her two case studies (Locke and Hall) in being Rhode’s Scholars at Oxford, then shaped their academic work regarding race. Izzy outlines how initially, Locke and Hall’s approaches to race differ through their backgrounds. On one hand, Hall had always been involved in matters of race at Oxford and viewed race as a product of social behaviours. On the other hand, Locke, was initially resistant to being viewed as championing race matters. Eventually, Locke too begins to include racial matters in his academic writing. What is most interesting to me is the connection between Locke’s time at Oxford and this ‘switch’ in his mentality – it goes to show the importance of academic discourse and lived experience in shaping the political aims of scholars and activists, something which I am also looking into in my project.
The contrast Locke draws between the experience of being black in the United Kingdom versus America (his home country) is also very interesting, and leads us to believe that perhaps if Locke had never been a Rhodes scholar, and thus never studied at Oxford, he would never have moved onto including race as an important matter of discussion in his academic work. This also led me to question the experience of race in St Andrews, and how that in itself is able to shape the way in which we view race in regards to our academic work. We do not have many black students at St Andrews, it is a fact but it is also a shame. Izzy’s presentation has greatly outlined this problem for me as it demonstrates how the lived experience of race in a university campus can lead to the shaping of both future academic work, journalism and even politics.
All in all, i found the presentation to be very engaging, as I could draw parallels between Izzy’s project and the relevance of the questions regarding matters of race in academia today. I wish Izzy and everyone the best of luck finishing their projects and am excited to see what everyone comes up with !