This seminar asks us to explore the forces—institutional, commercial, methodological—that form and reform literary canons. One such force is the great books approach to literature, which implies not only a canon, but a culture, a way of discussing texts, and a consideration that certain works are intrinsic to cultural inheritances and/or our shared humanity. The canon and the culture most often aligned with great books is rooted in white male authors and discussants who are inclined to reinforce or reinstate gender, racial, social, and other systems that oppress others and privilege some. This alignment was true when the great books were first pitched in the 1950s; it often remains ingrained in that canon and culture now at many colleges and universities. Groups that foster the great books approach to education use “shared inquiry,” an opinion-driven discussion/exploration rooted in evidentiary analysis of texts, and yet this open-ended methodology seems at odds with a proscriptive canon and culture, especially as new readings and texts have begun shifting how we reform and interrogate canons. Other forces are those of the literary marketplace and world literary system—of publication, circulation, critical and commercial reception, and the consecrating power of literary prizes. Recent approaches (Moretti, Casanova) to the rejection/acceptance or exclusion/inclusion of literary works place issues of authorship, genre, language, and value in the context of transnational, materialist understandings of the literary canon. Ultimately, this seminar asks which approaches to (re)thinking the literary canon may compel it to wither, or flourish and in what ways. Paper topics may include, among others:
How can approaches intersect and complicate both narratives and counternarratives within given social, political, gender, and religious/mythic identities? How can they complicate/interrogate national and ethnic narratives?
How can the canon become more dynamic in the ways that it represents the human condition? And what are the benefits of such an approach?
How can approaches include the morphing canonicity of different areas of literary study, embracing the ways that they intersect and evolve?
What are the benefits of the shared inquiry approach and how can it be adapted to the modern university? What are the limits? Can shared inquiry enable us to exceed and critique identity politics, which are often rooted in their own canons and culture?
How do authors’ raced and gendered identities, nationalities, or relationships to colonialism affect how we think about the rejection or acceptance of their work?
How may we think about rejection or acceptance in a global and transnational context (in the context of the world literary system or world republic of letters), as well as a transhistorical context, considering the timeliness of publications or critical interest?
How is rejection generative, punitive, or limiting? Can the same be said of acceptance?
What makes a work “great” or “bad,” and for whom? What is the difference between a critical reception and a popular or commercial reception? On what grounds is a work resonant, or transgressive?