Great Plains Studies, Center for

 

Date of this Version

March 2000

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly, Volume 20, Number 2, Spring 2000, p. 171. © 2000 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

Abstract

Literary histories play a crucial role in the construction, maintenance, and enforcement of literary canons. In some academic quarters, literary histories have come to be thought of as the tanks deployed in the canon wars, forces acting to suppress awareness of the vitality of local, regional, and minority literatures, and even of the national literatures of postcolonial countries. The canon-as represented in literary histories, conservative anthologies, official prizes, traditionally designed university English courses, and other cultural apparatuses- is the bulwark resisted by younger writers, women writers, writers of color, gay, lesbian, aboriginal, and experimental writers. Literary histories themselves, however, can play a very subversive role in cultural construction.

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