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  • T

    Tam SmithOct 23, 2014 at 10:40 am

    Excellent essay, Archana. I heartily agree with you. No matter what age we are, it matters deeply whether we see ourselves in literature or not. In an amazing essay in the New York TImes (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/the-apartheid-of-childrens-literature.html), which I highly recommend, Christopher Myers (Walter Dean Myers’ son) says, “[Kids] see books less as mirrors and more as maps. They are indeed searching for their place in the world, but they are also deciding where they want to go. They create, through the stories they’re given, an atlas of their world, of their relationships to others, of their possible destinations.”

    We owe it to kids—all kids—to draw them maps that resonate for them, for their dreams, and their realities.

    We Need Diverse Books is a GREAT organization too… (http://weneeddiversebooks.org)

    Thanks for this, Archana.

    Reply
  • P

    Poornima ApteOct 23, 2014 at 10:13 am

    I think WHS can remedy this by at providing some more diversity in its summer reading lists. I was delighted to see Junot Diaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on there a few years ago but it seems to have been taken off since. Recommend reading Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ha Jin. Zadie Smith is terrific as well, especially her White Teeth.

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  • P

    Peter SalmansOct 22, 2014 at 9:17 pm

    This is a very eloquent exploration of the problem. You will continue to encounter this debate in college, as many professors have strong opinions regarding whether or not the curriculum should still privilege “the masters” or try to infuse the curriculum with multicultural perspectives.

    As other teachers have discussed, the trend in college seems to be leaning towards privileging the diverse voice. As you rightly point out, historically, straight white males have been privileged with the dominant voice, which means that other identities have often been marginalized (see Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own). People who are marginalized on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, class, religion, etc. have confronted all kinds of social obstacles–so the opportunities necessary to produce a first-rate novel were often not entirely accessible (though the group of masterly 19th and 20th century women writers–Austen, Bronte, Eliot, Dickinson, Woolf–would make for quite a reading list).

    You are also correct in suggesting more masterfully written stories told from multicultural perspectives would enter the classroom if the curriculum became more modern/contemporary. For now, if you are interested in exploring a new perspective, I’d recommend trying Zadie Smith.

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  • K

    Krystal SkwarOct 22, 2014 at 2:53 pm

    Great post! Schools should make an effort to diversify! When a curriculum is white-washed, it sends the message that the straight white male author is somehow the norm, when that couldn’t be further from the truth today.

    What is fascinating to me is that in college classes, authors like Gertrude Stein (an openly gay female) and Richard Wright (a black man) are studied alongside the Thoreaus and Shakespeares. Recently Ms. Linden and Ms. Culliton decided to add A SMALL ISLAND by Andrea Levy – good step!

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  • C

    CashmanOct 21, 2014 at 6:44 pm

    Totally agree. Excellent post.

    Curriculum does need updating, especially the British Literature canon. Besides Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, all books are authored by straight white males.

    Reply
  • L

    Lisa LindenOct 21, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    While you’re right that our curriculum could be more diverse, we do have a few more texts in the English curriculum which are not by/about dead white men, including:Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible,” and ” Andrea Levy’s “Small Island.” We also have Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon.” I hope you get to read some of these titles before leaving WHS – in the meantime, keep up the fight for diversity in reading! 🙂

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Archana’s World: A Call for Diversity in Canonic Literature