The Canon Is Sexist, Racist, Colonialist, and Totally Gross. Yes, You Have to Read It Anyway

slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/05/24/yale_students_want_to_remake_the_english_major_requirements_but_there_s.html

>the current year
>still forced to read dead straight white males
I mean C'MON, it's TWO THOUSAND AND SIXTEEN. I thought we were more progressive than this.

But a lot of the canon is overrated and not applicable to our student's lives. Nor do we try to make it that way. A skilled professional could, but mostly it boils down to empty talking about symbolism and making kids hate books

...

Oy veeey

From another article of hers:
>This is a song about the tragedy of Teddy, Zac Efron’s omniendearing post–frat bro in Neighbors 2. He is a post–frat bro in multiple senses: He’s graduated from college. His brothers are getting married (to each other) and regretfully sexiling him from their shared house for the last time. More broadly, he is the god of a vanished or at least vanishing world, in which fraternities weren’t widely despised as bastions of misogyny and anti-intellectualism. In which thousands of campus conversations about rape culture hadn’t yet flowered like nightshade in the collegiate garden of Eden. Teddy’s post–frat bro is sweet and lost, newly woke to the fact that mainstream liberal discourse hates frat bros (even as interest in Greek life has surged over the past 10 years). But the saddest thing about him is that he never even existed in the first place.

they claim that it's shortsighted and limiting to read the 'canon'

but isn't it more short sighted to only read modern fiction by english speaking, mainly Western authors of certain races and genders?

Did anybody actually read the article? It's actually pretty good. Basically telling these stupid SJWs that the Canon is worth reading whether they like it or not.

>But even if you disagree, there’s no getting around the facts. Although you’ve written that the English department “actively contributes to the erasure of history,” what it really does is accurately reflect the tainted history we have—one in which straight white cis-men dominated art-making for centuries—rather than the woke history we want and fantasize about. There are few (arguably no) female poets writing in Chaucer’s time who rival Chaucer in wit, transgressiveness, texture, or psychological insight. The lack of equal opportunity was a tremendous injustice stemming from oppressive social norms, but we can’t reverse it by willing brilliant female wordsmiths into the past. Same goes for people of color in Wordsworth’s day, or openly queer people in Pope’s, or …

Who fucking cares. Go shill that shit on reddit.

>"Dindu Nuffins: The memoirs of Tyrone Jackson" by Tyrone Jackson, edited and translated from the ebonics by Mort Goldstein and Harold Jewberg
>"Educate Yourself Shitlords" by Gertrude Rothstein
>"Me, my Wife, my Wife's son, Jamal, and the Sublime Pleasures of Voyeurism" by Sven Rundquist
>"Just Fuck My Shit Up" by Alistair J. Berkshires

Modern Ivy League """"education""""

>straight

...

>he didn't get into Princeton

Personally, I think it's a great thing when students are coddled and live in this delusional hugbox where nothing challenging happens to them. It makes it much easier to dominate them in the real world. Thanks, higher education.

b9 m9

this.

Also, I graduated a few years ago and now that I'm working as an educator outside of the states and studying a new language as well exploring other endeavors, I've come to realize the amount of resources that were available to me in college that I took for granted.

There's probably a handful of target reasons to support an increased integration of non-white male works into the canon, but if it's the matter of learning, which is the most important, there's plenty of opprotunity to learn about, read, and study works from other contributors.

Anyone at Yale can go to their library and learn for free. And that's not to mention the amount of information freely available on the world wide web.

This open letter(?) is spot on in many ways

It's kinda strange that a major would only have 1 mandatory class. Most majors at Universities have multiple mandatory credit requirements to make sure their student comes out of the program well rounded, but also with enough electives to form their graduate studies focus.

Also the amount of backpedaling in that article is pretty amateur.

Lmao did you even read the article? It's absolutely reasonable, although I'd caution against applying modern racial attitudes to Othello.

The dynamic of a black North African commander in Venice isn't that similar to an African American living in the US.

>slate.com
Double You E Double You, lad.

I think the SJWs don't go far enough in their deconstruction of the cannon. Abolish university system. Hierarchical text distribution is inherently oppressive. Information anarchy. All text content is equally worthy of study. Contemplate a single Arcane Glyph and you shall discern the universe.

Lots of majors only require a couple of specific courses, but have categories of courses you need to take one each of or something like that. I reckon that's how Yale is.

She's defending the canon you fatty slab of human garbage

>I want to gently push back, too, against the idea that the major English poets have nothing to say to students who aren’t straight, male, and white. For all the ways in which their particular identities shaped their work, these writers tried to represent the entire human condition, not just their clan. A great artist possesses both empathy and imagination: Many of Shakespeare’s female characters are as complexly nuanced as any in circulation today,Othellotakes on racial prejudice directly, andTwelfth Nightcontains enough gender-bending identity shenanigans to fuel multiple drag shows and occupy legions of queer scholars. The “stay in your lane” mentality that seems to undergird so much progressive discourse—only polyamorous green people really “get” the “polyamorous green experience,” and therefore only polyamorous greens should read and write about polyamorous greens, say—ignores our common humanity.

i'm confused as to how students feel as if they are an authority on the material versus the professors, and on why you would want to be educated then on subjects you already have knowledge for there of. it's as if people are using these words, sexist, racist, colonialist, but they're losing the context of what these actually mean.

>i'm confused as to how students feel as if they are an authority on the material versus the professors

they are the customers :^)

BUILD THAT WALL BABY

>the woke history

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Niggerspeak is academic jargon now?

>SEXIST
>RAYCISS
>COLONIALIST
>Shakespeare's okay

You dumb shit, she's saying that modern social concerns are NOT valid reasons to eschew 2500 years of literary tradition

Kind of a shame it takes this much for people to recognize common fucking sense.

>i'm confused as to how students feel as if they are an authority on the material versus the professors
this is what happens when you have a country founded on the delusion that everyone's equal and there no such thing as a stupid opinion

Yep

ITT: People discussing something they haven't read

Welcome to Veeky Forums

American Academia has been turned into a mere business, they serve their customers their students
Do the math on how this is going to turn out in another ten years

She's partially right and I guess it's good for SJWs to read, but I still fucking hate that people can't get their heads out of their asses and stop framing literally everything through their political views.

>framing literally everything through their political views

While I agree it's tiresome to address, everything, not least of all education, is political and has political implications. Simply ignoring the political implications of education is the privilege of someone who isn't being slighted or shafted in today's state.

If this is a defense I'm an astronaut.

>omg they're totes terrible monsters and icky white men, but they were influential so you have to read them anyway

A real defense would begin by attacking the premises.

And a real argument doesn't misrepresent and distort the author's views, fuckboy.

>everything, not least of all education, is political and has political implications

So let those who understand politics talk about it. In other words definitely not people who study literature. "being shafted" affords you no insight whatsoever.

>There are few (arguably no) female poets writing in Chaucer’s time who rival Chaucer in wit, transgressiveness, texture, or psychological insight.

>transgressiveness
>texture
>psychological insight

Is this how we judge literature now?

Yeah seriously. You can't possibly have gone through further education as a white man without noticing how many people question your right to self determination

In Europe until 30 years ago people used universities to form left-wing guerrilas, but I don't think anyone didn't want to study Ovid because it's sexist.

Americans are weird.

I'm not really arguing through the lens of the left/right dichotomy or individual political views. I'm saying education is political in that those who control it consequently control what information is given to students, and in what light that information is presented. It's broad and comprehensible enough that I don't think it's helpful to silence or put down people in this discussion solely due to their alleged political inexperience/ignorance.

Meant for

that's pretty obvious, but they won't accept.
To use an example, my roomate, who studies Political Sciences, is writing his post-graduate thesis on Carl Schmitt and he's doing it mostly just because he never even heard of him during lectures.

Well, your roommate sounds like a wad

welcome to the 2010s

Do they have an argument for why it's bad for people of straight white cishet male-gendered men to have dominated in the past centuries? I don't see why these little details matter at all. I'm not white; I'm a human being. Why would I care what tiny biological differences these authors have? This is ad hominem at best.

nah he's cool
he started with concept of enmity in international relationship and found out that Schmitt offered an alternative take to liberal establishment of Internationl Right

What is the alternative to the Western canon? Most of the arguments against it presuppose that there is culturally significant literature to study from. Who are these authors?

I'm genuinely curious. I'm mostly uninformed on this argument.

To add, I wouldn't care if all these authors were literally chimpanzees despite myself being a human.

Can someone explain how the canon is "Sexist, Racist, Colonialist, and Totally Gross"?

>I don't see why these little details matter at all

I groan whenever I see this argument. You're right, these little details shouldn't matter. The problem is, the "dominant whites" were the ones who made these "little details" matter in the first place by building and reifying systems and institutions founded on serial and racial difference, traces of which continue to exist in today's society. White people who call out race-baiting and "making everything about race" fail to acknowledge that white people were the first ones to "make everything about race" in the first place.

>serial
*sexual

>those who understand politics
>in other words definitely not people who study literature

if you think literature isn't political you're a fucking retard

it's like saying authors should never discuss philosophy, which would make everyone from Dostoyevsky to Pynchon the equivalent of John Green

The argument is basically twofold.
1) The writers themselves were socialized with sexist, racist, and colonialism views, part and parcel of their respective eras. See Plato's Republic for an exaggerated example.
2) The act of drawing up and forcing upon students such a curriculum conveys the message that our society only values or finds value in the intellectual work of white men.

Because many, possibly a majority, of the authors in the canon would be considered those things by the author of this article and her audience if they were resurrected today. She's making a case that the makeup and purpose of the canon is none of those things if you intend to learn about literature as an academic field, and even if it were you would need to read it to study literature academically.

The students she's addressing have forgotten that a literature department is not just a place where you read books together.

what the fuck is that quote fuck her fucking dumb ass bitch

>I groan whenever I see this argument.

Are you "literally shaking" too, by any chance?

>the "dominant whites" were the ones who made these "little details" matter in the first place by building and reifying systems and institutions founded on serial and racial difference, traces of which continue to exist in today's society. White people who call out race-baiting and "making everything about race" fail to acknowledge that white people were the first ones to "make everything about race" in the first place.

Projection, conspiracy theory. Call it what you will, guys; and don't forget to pay those reparations.

Slavery
Lynching
Jim Crow
DOMA
Chinese Exclusion Act
Private prisons
I don't understand how pointing out blatant sexism and racism amounts to conspiracy theory

Did you have something to actually say vis-a-vis my point, or nah

>Using 'White People' unironically
>Implying we are responsible for any of that
>Implying this alleged 'White Conspiracy' did not naturally arise as a consequence of superiority

Your 'point'?

Don't fucking kid yourself. Be sure not to miss your Sociology lecture too.

If you think the history of the west being dominated by one group that relatively recently was pretty much the enemy of everyone else on earth is a "little detail" then you might need to get your eyes checked.

>our fault
We're not in the western canon either

>naturally as a result of superiority
No I don't think that going out of ine's way to keep minority groups in check is evidence of the superiority of the majority. There are other cases for that, but this one doesn't make any sense.

>>Implying we are responsible for any of that

No one is implying that a white person in 2k16 is responsible for slavery, you mong. The argument is that racism didn't magically vanish with the abolition of slavery, or the Chinese Exclusion Act, or [insert historical racist practice here]. Which is true. But the discussion never goes beyond that because of people like you who feel wrongly attacked for past transgressions, while failing to understand the present state of affairs.

>I have no argument so I'll just sound superior and derisive instead
Beautifully executed

>come back to Veeky Forums after some time
>this is the first thread I see

Goodbye.

>We're not in the western canon either

So what are you crying about?

>No I don't think that going out of ine's way to keep minority groups in check is evidence of the superiority of the majority.

Actually, having so successfully kept them in check is a pretty clear piece of evidence concerning the superiority.

>But the discussion never goes beyond that because of people like you who feel wrongly attacked for past transgressions, while failing to understand the present state of affairs.

Which it shouldn't, unless you believe in the 'sins of the fathers' passing down to the children.

Thanks, and not in any way mistaken.

Couldn't be more delusional. The "racist, sexist, colonialist" attitudes come directly from existing in a premodern world that lacked literacy, lacked communication between groups, lacked modern science that tells us that race isn't a meaningful way to categorize people, lacked life extending technology, and existed in a brutal violent world where might makes right. White people didn't invent racism, or sexism, or even colionalism; all those things arise logically and naturally from a world that incentivizes and promotes that behavior. To take your first world, 21st century understanding of the world and impress upon older generations some moral failure is the dumbest, most millennial thing you could possibly do

??? The fuck are you saying? Are you replying to the right person?

All of that has happened and continues to happen in non-white countries but western liberals seem inordinately focused on "muh white men"

The US, Canada, Aus/NZ and Western Europe are some of the most tolerant and liberal places on earth. On the others side of the racial barrier I think it was Mauritania that didn't outlaw slavery until 2009.

That happens to every group. Stop whining and suck it up.

Fucking nu-males balking at adversity.

>b-but come on, we're more tolerant than these other guys!

kewl

Authors can do whatever they want. I'm talking about the people in English departments. They should stay as far away from philosophy as from politics.

>B-But I thought da ebul white man was da worst?!

Heh.

>To take your first world, 21st century understanding of the world and impress upon older generations some moral failure is the dumbest, most millennial thing you could possibly do

I don't disagree. But to bring these works into the 21st century, especially in order to understand how they both reflect and shape Western culture to the present, requires a critical analysis of how they contributed to (or themselves criticized) such institutions.

If you're ridiculing my viewpoint for being limited to America, then sure, correct.

slavery was the best thing that ever happened to black americans desu. if it weren't for slavery they'd be back home in africa getting stabbed to death by liberian cannibals and having their organs harvested for food and ooga booga black magic rituals. welfare, foo stams and free SAT points don't seem so bad by comparison.

>To take your first world, 21st century understanding of the world and impress upon older generations some moral failure is the dumbest, most millennial thing you could possibly do
Fucking preach it man.

This progressive moral universalism is the poison of the age.

Gr8 b8 m8 r8 8/8 etc

Yeah, that's not what these kinds of students want.

>authors should go to school to learn about literature and how to write
>English professors should completely omit the political and philosophical aspects of literature from the curriculum

I'd say the problem with this sort of liberal attempts at redressing historical wrongs its they are ultimately too limiting, presentist and ironically western focused. There's little interest in non-western traditions in their own right, it's mostly all about current western notions of identity and morality. Everything gets read through that lens. In the end, it merely amounts to a new and more insidious form of moral imposition.

...Granted.

>requires a critical analysis of how they contributed to (or themselves criticized) such institutions.

Some sort of...critical theory?

Don't play coy. Many authors from the past did not share our views.

Even works which are radically progressive for their time (ie, Heart of Darkness) often contain language that would be considered very bigoted today.

There's quite a lot of valuable non-Western literature (particularly from India and China) that's largely ignored by universities simply because it's not very relevant to the Western canon. Most philosophy courses are Eurocentric by design, and people fear this could lead to racism and alienation.

The anti-canon argument suggests that the presence of non-white authors in a curriculum would be more appealing to non-white students and fight Eurocentricism.

>Many authors from the past did not share our views.
>often contain language that would be considered very bigoted today.

Oh my Gooood, no way!

>(Yes, you have to read it anyway)

WHY DOES EVERY WOMAN'S PROSE SOUND LIKE A CLICKBAIT ARTICLE TITLE

I HATE THAT SMARMY ADD ON THEY DO EVERY SINGLE TIME IT REEKS OF PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE FEMINITY IM GONNA KILL MYSELF

>reeee don't give opinions on stuff I've adopted to define my identity

>Using 'bigoted' unironically

You are seriously spooked, my friend.

Maybe time to up your Zoloft dosage?

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Here's Justinian in 529, the law that closed the Platonic Academy in Athens:

>We wish to widen the law once made by us and by our father of blessed memory against all remaining heresies (we call heresies those faiths which hold and believe things otherwise than the catholic and apostolic orthodox church), so that it ought to apply not only to them but also to Samaritans and pagans. Thus, since they have had such an ill effect, they should have no influence nor enjoy any dignity, nor acting as teachers of any subjects, should they drag the minds of the simple to their errors and, in this way, turn the more ignorant of them against the pure and true orthodox faith; so we permit only those who are of the orthodox faith to teach and accept a public stipend.

Then later you had scholasticism, which is basically the stage this article is at. Those pagans sure are icky and going to hell, but we have to study them cause they were important!

I fucking hate the smug bitches who pretend like they're above fucking Aristotle just because they were born into the 21st century.

Like wow, so sorry the white man built your entire civilization and enabled you to get an education and invented the internet so that you could post about how you hate white men.

Read the fucking article you dumb cunt

I did. She's acting as if she's above all these people.

"eww cis-hets, I mean I guess they were smart or whatever, but wow gross"

Yeah, great article.

May I mention nothing was stopping the africans, asians or even the peoples of the new world from creating their own works.

They just never properly focused on philosophy and literature which is why their culture wasn't based around it, hence why their canon is not as widely studied.

Their canon isn't widely studied in the west because it's not culturally relevant. Just because you're an ignorant white nignog doesn't mean there's nothing there.

Both the Medieval Christians and Muslims loved Aristotle because he provides an argument for monotheism. Aristotle was one of the most translated and discussed pagans in monastic and scholastic discourse. So even the scholastics were above this article.

The African canon literally doesn't exist because they didn't have anything to write on.