Canon Wars

PZ sends this article on the canon wars, wars I've been intimately involved in since I entered the world of textbook publishing more than 25 years ago. I agreed to cowrite a snappy quiz book called Test Your Cultural Literacy only if I were allowed to write an introduction that explained both sides of the controversy--granted, an introduction no one ever read, but it made me feel better--and if I could then go on to write Test Your Countercultural Literacy, whose introduction went into detail on the relationship between cultural literacy and ideological hegemony--again, an introduction no one read, and now a book that's o/p--although it was a blast to write. But I, too, am concerned that we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, that maybe Toni Morrison isn't--well, hell--all that great. And I'm certainly worried that our kids coming out of high school have little or no foundation for the study of literature or history in college. But maybe it doesn't matter, because we want them all to be scientists and mathematicians now. Anyway, food for thought.

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