Last week, Society members were surprised and a bit disturbed to read in three national newspapers that Warwick University English Department had decided to put ‘trigger warnings’ on Mary Barton. If anyone doesn’t know what these are, they are warnings of content that may distress the student reader for a myriad of different reasons. Could be to do with racism, sexism, trans issues, disability issues, mental health etc – anything that could possibly ’trigger’ a negative or upsetting reaction in a student.  

 

But the main one used for Mary Barton was a new one to me – classism.