As an English professor, I’m faced with teaching these
grand old classes called the “surveys,” which are either invoked with
reverence, dread, or disdain, depending on where the speaker went to school
(and how long ago). These courses,
typically British/American Literature I and II, World Literature/Humanities I
and II, invite the widest possible approach and for this very reason are often
avoided by professors. Indeed, for
decades now many academics have written these courses off as touting an elitist
point of view, stressing “dead white males” over the just-as-significant
marginal writers who were shut out because of their sex, race, or
eccentricity. A literature survey (they
claim) of any kind bows to the idea of a “canon” of accepted writers, which all
students must read, discuss, and struggle with as the basis of one’s
education.
