A Cambridge University lecturer has defended his decision to issue a trigger warning for a lecture on sexual assault in drama, rejecting claims that it panders to 'snowflakes'. Dr Ian Burrows, a lecturer at the university's Faculty of English, said he flagged the discussion of sexual abuse in advance as a 'basic courtesy' for potential victims.
Dr Burrows' lecture examined how sexual assault is portrayed in Sarah Kane's 1995 play Blasted and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, focusing on how traumatic experiences can be treated in art and criticism. He attached a trigger warning to the lecture timetable, noting that the discussion might be particularly difficult for those who had personally encountered abuse.
The warning sparked a media storm, with headlines such as 'Cambridge students warned Shakespeare plays may distress them' and 'Cambridge Uni students get Shakespeare trigger warnings'. Dr Burrows criticised the coverage for omitting the lecture's focus on sexual assault and misrepresenting his students as 'snowflakes'.
In an article for The Guardian, he wrote: 'The trigger warning was enabling me to talk about challenging issues; it was an announcement that I was going to talk about them, at length, from a literary-critical angle.' He added that trigger warnings are 'nothing to do with censorship' but rather a courtesy to those who might find the subject matter distressing.
Dr Burrows also took aim at critics such as Labour MP Helen Jones, who tweeted that she was 'very worried if Cambridge are admitting people who don't know that Shakespeare can be gory'. He argued that the lecture was not simply about describing a book's content, but about analysing how sexual assault is depicted and trivialised in reception.
