An intensive reexamination of selected works that are considered by many to be classics. Students explore what constitutes a "classic" of world literature, who labels "classics," and how our own personal choices for the classroom are influenced by the social status of these works. Course requirements: There will be one midterm exam, collaborative reading questions and bibliographic work, and a final project that includes an oral presentation and a research-supported essay.
Primary Sources: Voltaire, Candide. Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Sophocles, Antigone. Shakespeare, Macbeth. Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Achebe, Things Fall Apart. Walker, The Color Purple
Secondary Sources:
Applebee, Arthur N. A Study of Book-Length Works Taught in High School English Courses. Albany, NY: Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, 1989.
Aronowitz, Stanley. Roll Over Beethoven: The Return of Cultural Strife. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1993. (see Chapter 7: "The Authority of Knowledge")
Bennett, William J. "To Reclaim a Legacy," 1984 Report on Humanities in Education, Chronicle of Higher Education 28 November 1984: 1, 14-21.
-----. "Why the West?" National Review 27 May 1988:
Berger, Joseph. "U.S. Literature: Canon Under Seige," New York Times 6 January 1988: B6.
Beyers, Bob. "Machiaveli Loses Ground at Stanford; Bible Holds Its Own," Chronicle of Higher Education 19 June 1991: B2, B3.
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Brooks, David. "From Western Lit to Westerns as Lit," Wall Street Journal 2 February 1988: 36.
Cheney, Lynne. Humanities in America; A Report to the President, the Congress, and the American People. Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Humanities, 1988.
Clausen, Christopher. "It Is Not Elitist to Place Major Literature at the Center of the English Curriculum," Chronicle of Higher Education 13 January 1988: A52.
DelFattore, Joan. What Johnny Shouldn't Read: Textbook Censorship in America. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.
D'Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York: Free Press, 1991.
Gless, Darryl J. and Barbara Herrnstein Smith. The Politics of Liberal Education. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992.
Graff, Gerald. Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Re-vitalize American Education. NY: Norton, 1992. (see Chapter 2: "The Vanishing Classics and Other Myths: Two Episodes in the Culture War")
-----. Teaching the Conflicts: Curricular Reform and the Culture Wars. 1994.
-----. "What Has Literary Theory Wrought?" The Chronicle of Higher Education 12 Feb. 1992: A48.
[other works by Graff that are worth a look: Criticism in the university / edited by Gerald Graff and Reginald Gibbons (1985) Literature against itself : literary ideas in modern society / Gerald Graff (1979) The Origins of literary studies in America : a documentary anthology / Gerald Graff (1989) Professing literature : an institutional history / Gerald Graff (1987)]
Helprin, Mark. "The Canon under Seige," New Criterion 7.1 (September 1988): 36.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. ÒRevolution in the Library.Ó The Key Reporter 6.3 (Spring 1997): 1-5. [Also printed in the Spring 1997 issue of the American Scholar]
Hirsch, E. D. Cultural Literacy : What Every American Needs to Know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Hirsch, E. D. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
Lauter, Paul. Canons and Contexts. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Levine, Lawrence, W. The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
O'Brien, Dennis. "The Disappearing Moral Curriculum." The Key Reporter 6.4 (Summer 1997): 1-5.
Pollitt, Katha. "Canon to the Right of Me. . . ." The Nation 23 Sept. 1991: 328-332,
Pratt, Mary Louise. "Humanities for the Future: Reflections on the Western Culture Debate at Stanford." The South Atlantic Quarterly 89.1 (Winter 1990): 7-25.
Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Redefining American Literary History. New York: MLA, 1990. [see 35-51: Kolb, Harold H., Jr. "Defining the Canon")
Shaw, Peter. ÒPseudo-reform in the Academy.Ó Partisan Review 63.1 (30 Jan. 1966): 94-104.
Teachout, Terry. "Why Johnny Is Ignorant," Commentary 85.3 (March 1988): 71.
Wilson, Robin. "Bennett: Colleges' 'Trendy Lightweights' Replace Classics with Nonsense," Chronicle of Higher Education 10 February 1988: A27.
Yardley, Jonathan. "Paradise Tossed: The Fall of Literary Standards," Washington Post, "Style" 11 January 1988: 52.
The project
TASK: Propose an addition to the literary canon. Choose from contemporary, multicultural, medieval/ Renaissance "overlooked," feminist, gay/lesbian, or stylistically/thematically problematic pieces of literature of any genre that have not officially entered the established canon for either our high school or university curricula. First research the status of the work you have chosen. Discover who teaches the text, where, with what frequency. Conduct interviews with educators and administrators on the suitability of your chosen work for inclusion in syllabi. Then, argue for the adoption of the text in either high school- or university-level courses. Be sure to state the criteria by which you chose this work as a viable member of the literary canon. Equally important is your defense of the text against the (documented or imaginary) attacks of those who would refuse its admittance to the canon.
Your final project will be evaluated according to two elements: an oral presentation of your project and a research-supported essay.
The oral presentation
The purpose of your oral presentation is to share the information you have collected about your chosen text and to attempt to convince your audience of its value as a member of the literary canon. The presentation will NOT be a reading of your paper; instead, you should devise a creative and enlightening way of accomplishing this double task of informing and persuading your audience. Your oral presentation will be evaluated for its content and delivery. You are encouraged to use visual aids, and you may ask another student to assist you in your presentation.
Your oral presentation is limited to 5 minutes.
The research-supported essay
Your paper, no matter what the topic or technique, must take the form of an original argument. That is, you should first develop your own ideas. Then, rely on primary and secondary texts to support your thesis.
All research must be properly documented according to MLA guidelines. Please make use of reading list material where applicable and discover new sources on the topic of canonical texts available to you through the library.
Papers are expected to be free from errors in grammar, syntax, and usage. When in doubt, consult a manual of style. Essays are considered unsatisfactory if they have one or more of these weaknesses:
vapid, inadequate substance
failure to follow the assignment
misuse in any way of documented materials
serious inaccuracies in grammar, usage, or spelling
poor organization, lack of clarity, or excessive repetition
lack of proofreading
Your essay should be 8-10 pages (not including bibliography), typed in 12-point.
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