An upcoming online panel will explore the future of English departments in a time of increasing decolonization.

Organized for the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English by Ronald Cummings, Associate Professor in Brock’s Department of English Language and Literature, the event titled “The End/Future of the English Department” will take place Monday, Feb. 22.

Calls for dismantling English departments go back to the University of Nairobi in 1969, with the goal to unsettle colonial formations, decenter England and facilitate dialogue among all literatures. Recent decades have seen the restructuring of English departments in response to the rise of literary and critical theory and cultural studies.

The panel will explore what it means to work under the designation of English studies in the current moment of Black and Indigenous insurgency, university diversity initiatives and calls for decolonization.

The panel discussion features Phanuel Antwi (University of British Columbia), Nadine Attewell (Simon Fraser University), Aubrey Hanson (University of Calgary) and Sonnet L’Abbé (Vancouver Island University).

The free webinar will be held Monday, Feb. 22 from 4 to 5 p.m. Advance registration is required.