Cambridge has been accused of pandering to “crazy Americans” after the university press removed the term from the title of a leading world magazine.
Anglo-Saxon England, which has been in operation since the 1970s, was renamed Early Medieval England and Its Neighbors by Cambridge University Press during a relaunch earlier this week.
The university said the title change represented the “international, interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving nature of research in this field”.
But author and historian Dominic Sandbrook criticized it, saying it was done because the publisher “didn’t have the courage to say no to a bunch of crazy Americans.”
The term Ango-Saxon is often thought to have a different meaning in the United States, as it has been used by white supremacists to describe white people of British origin.
Cambridge has been accused of pandering to “crazy Americans” after its university press removed the term from the title of a leading global magazine.
The university said the title change represented the “international, interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving nature of research in this field”.
And in 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxons voted to change its name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England due to “problematic connotations” associated with the term.
David Abulafia, emeritus professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge, today joined the criticism of the change.
He told the Telegraph: “The magazine should boast of its distinguished reputation instead of trying to reinvent itself under a bland new name dictated by a passing fad of abandoning the Anglo-Saxon term.”
Wanjiru Njoya, a former Oxford and Exeter professor, also criticized him on social media.
She posted “now Cambridge has changed the name of its magazine from ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to ‘Early Medieval’ while sharing a news story about how the term was being changed to make teaching at Cambridge anti-racist.”
The previous title: Anglo-Saxon England, which has now been changed to Cambridge University Press.
The new title: Early medieval England and its neighbors
Early Medieval England and Her Neighbors is a world-leading journal featuring a range of works by scholars from Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.
Previously, the department attempted to “dismantle the foundations of the myths of nationalism” by teaching students that Anglos were not a distinct ethnic group.
The term has typically referred to a cultural group of people who emerged in the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Norman Conquest.
A spokesperson for Cambridge University Press said: “The journal will continue to welcome and use the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as it publishes a wide range of high-quality academic research on England, its closest geographical and intellectual neighbors and its wider cultural environment. . contacts from the 5th to the 11th century.
‘The new title reflects the breadth of that academic work and is part of a broader relaunch of the journal, which is now open access, will have more regular publications and will take on an expanded reach, with the aim of solidifying the reputation of the journal . position as the most prominent in this rich field.