Canon Vs. Culture

Introduction

JAN GORAK

Reflections on the Cultural Revolution: Canons and Disciplinary Change takes the pulse of a quarter century of often bewildering change in the humanities. The first part, “Why the Revolution Happened,” contains four essays, each of which describes some impasse in traditional methods of transmitting canonical texts. William Cain of Wellesley College recalls his undergraduate experience of attenuated courses in American literature that silenced African and Hispanic voices and failed to register such acute national conflicts as the Abolitionist Crisis. His hope is that American institutions of the twenty-first century will register the diversity of the population of the United States and, to that end, he calls for a broader ...