tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1006479003534298455.post4069224131521520816..comments2023-10-12T07:59:31.827-04:00Comments on Antiquitopia: Edward Said on the Importance of CanonJared Calawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09380681998833566514noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1006479003534298455.post-17643755706951027052013-03-07T22:29:15.772-05:002013-03-07T22:29:15.772-05:00The assumption of a foundation of common knowledge...The assumption of a foundation of common knowledge is definitely a plus. And it is something I miss. I constantly refer to issues raised in Dante's Divine Comedy, but it doesn't have the impact when students have never read it. I also refer to Crime & Punishment, Don Quixote. Oh, and it is amazing how many students haven't read Homer! I agree that we need to bring other works into conversation, but, when it comes down to it, I don't think you can fully understand, say, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway without Homer and Greek Tragedy respectively.Jared Calawayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09380681998833566514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1006479003534298455.post-9260179895934824042013-03-07T21:44:51.212-05:002013-03-07T21:44:51.212-05:00I taught Contemporary Civilization when I was a po...I taught Contemporary Civilization when I was a post-doc at Columbia, and very much enjoyed teaching the class, but I also thought it was very necessary not just to critique the canon but to bring other works into conversation with it - and perhaps gradually change the canon. <br /><br />I was lamenting to another professor the other day that at Ithaca College, although we are finally instituting a core curriculum next year (!), there has been no thought given to creating a joint canon that all the students would then be familiar with. (if such a proposal had been made, it would have been shot down for many different reasons). One reason I like the idea is so that professors teaching other courses can then assume that all the students would have read, for example, Plato's Republic, or Chinua Achebe, or Imre Kertesz, or Toni Morrison, and would then be able to refer to them in class and bring the students' knowledge of that work to bear on the subject of the particular course. But instead we (they?) have created a very complicated, unwieldy system that certainly does not deserve the name of "core curriculum."Rebeccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17626228106192215280noreply@blogger.com