Summary of Whose canon is it anyway?
“Whose canon is it anyway?” is an article written by Bethan Marshall. In the article, Marshall analyzes a review by Tom Paulin of a book by Anthony Julius about the anti-Semitism and literary works of T. S. Elliot. Despite being a well-known anti-Semite, Elliot and his poetry were studied in schools around the world. Therefore, by questioning his beliefs, we also question our own culture because Elliot’s works are closely related to its foundation. So, Elliot poses the question: Is culture something we can control or deliberately influence? In 1993, the head of the National Curriculum Council, David Pascall, changed the curriculum in an effort to try and answer Elliot’s question. Five years earlier,
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Five years earlier, Brian Cox had tried to implement a similar kind of curriculum as Pascall but did not follow through with it despite feeling the need for a cultural analysis. Edward Said describes culture as being something inevitable that grows on the individual and automatically makes them a little xenophobic. Dr. Nicholas Tate brought up how our culture is based on our interest and the environment in which we are placed in. He believes that someone can be multicultural as it is part of what makes the person core culture. Yet, by trying to alter the culture, we are losing the traditional values that English literature was built on. For example, the works by Elliot that was been studied for decades are the roots for questions about culture, identity and power that are trying to be preserved.
“Whose canon is it anyway?” is an article written by Bethan Marshall. In the article, Marshall analyzes a review by Tom Paulin of a book by Anthony Julius about the anti-Semitism and literary works of T. S. Elliot. Despite being a well-known anti-Semite, Elliot and his poetry were studied in schools around the world. Therefore, by questioning his beliefs, we also question our own culture because Elliot’s works are closely related to its foundation. So, Elliot poses the question: Is culture something we can control or deliberately influence? In 1993, the
Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.
For Vivian Gornick, a Jewish girl from New York, she knew nothing of these so called “Discourses”. Vivian was clueless on things outside of her neighborhood. To her everyone on earth might as well have been Jewish. However,
Gladwell uses Korean airplane crashes and Asian children being good at math to support his arguments on cultural legacy playing a part in being successful. In these countries there is a high level of respect and a strong foundation of hard work that contributes to these two events. The respect created the plane crashes since co pilots fear speaking up to their superiors, and the foundation of hard work drives the children to put their all into their work. Gladwell takes these properties and applies them to a school named KIPP in New York City that supposedly uses cultural legacy to help make their students succeed. The problem with this that Gladwell presents cultural legacy as being heritage linked. KIPP school is duplicating the actions of
Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.
The Promised Land delivers an entertaining perspective on discriminations against religion and the Jewish Ethnicity. This book is a perfect resource to historians, students, educators, and Jewish enthusiasts. While reviewing this book, the primary source included These problems for the Jewish ethnicity are only an insignificant diversion to the story in its entirety.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, antisemitism made its mark on Europe. Many people had prejudices against Jews and Judaism. However, there were also people striving for an Enlightened environment. A lot of ideas were generated on this topic and several viewpoints emerged. Papers and and books were written laying out these viewpoints, including the texts of Richard Wagner and Christian Wilhelm von Dohm. Wagner’s work, Judaism in Music, shows his strong opinions on the Enlightenment process and what he thinks should occur. Dohm’s paper, On the Civic Improvement of the Jews, illustrates the ideas that he believes will be most beneficial. These two authors, Wagner and Dohm, both had specific thoughts on how and if the ideas of this Enlightenment process should be carried out.
The study of history and historical writings is called historiography; American Jewish history is one form to study about the past of the American Jews. Jacob Rader Marcus and Hasia R. Diner are two historians who broke down American Jewish historiography according to their point of views. In “The Periodization of American Jewish History,” Marcus focuses on four periods of American Jewish history. On the other hand, in “The Study of American Jewish History: in the Academy, in the Community,” Diner discusses many dates celebrate and urge the study of American Jewish history. Marcus and Diner both approach with historical information; however, Marcus approaches historiography through specific, cultural eras while Diner briefly summarizes
David Malter, an Orthodox rabbi, is often condemned by Reb Saunders for his Zionistic beliefs. Mr. Malter shows his understanding of character while rebuking his son for a comment about Saunders, saying, “The fanaticism of men like Reb Saunders kept us alive for two thousand years of exile” (219). His statement shows a true understanding of human character, and exemplifies respect for someone condescending. Not only does he show this wisdom through words, but also through acts of kindness, such as talking to Danny and helping him find good literature when the boy appeared lonely. Ergo, through kind actions and wise words, David Malter illustrates an understanding of human
Jonathan Rosen and Ari Elon are from two different worlds. Both live, however, in diaspora—Rosen in the void between the Holocaust and American plentitude, and Elon in that between the existence of a Jewish state and the inability of such a state to survive. Of course, these simple monikers do nothing truly to exemplify fully the great conflicting ideas with which these individuals deal; antiquity and modernity, talmud and Torah, life and death, exile and homeland, and, admittedly, many more dominate the situations of both authors. This is, perhaps, a testament to the condition of Jews today—ensnared between conflicting worlds, and forced into exile between disparate ideals, the Jewish people must make complex decisions as to which side
“Generally accepted to have been the father of modern Zionism,” (Wharton, 75) Theodore Herzl wrote in his groundbreaking piece 1896 Der Judenstaat:
Mary Louise Pratt did well to propose an integration of the western culture that has been so imposed in the reading materials with a multicultural blend of curriculum contents. This is what Appiah advocated for that for good and amicable relations among different communities, there should be a commitment of exploring the cultures of other societies and tolerance in learning them in order for people of different cultures to live well with one another (Pratt, 1991).
But early religious schisms were far less to blame for growing anti-semitism than the need to establish the roles of religious groups. Of course, this fabricated a new hierarchical system requiring condemnatory reasoning, so twelfth-century Christians spoke of an “ancient blood libel: that every year at Passover, Jews ritually slaughter Christian children and use their blood to bake matzo” a belief which persisted well into the twentieth century (Smith 18). Such sentiments were widespread throughout the Western World, and while they vacillated on intensity, the hierarchy failed to disperse despite the hopes of a new, modern world. Following the Enlightenment, modernity was expected to be a future of logic, reason, and liberties. Yet the twentieth century began with fermenting resentments of failed revolution and strong xenophobia as nationalist sentiments rose. Such bias created in Jews a sense of Otherness as “indigenous” Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, looked to their shared history of Christendom as a cultural indicator of ethnicity traced back for hundreds of
During the second half of the 19th century a wave of Jews, fleeing from their home countries in Eastern Europe, immigrated to the United States looking for a better quality of life and pursuing not being persecuted for their religion. In Abraham Cahan’s book “The Rise of David Lewinsky” the main character is one of these Jewish people who immigrated from Antomir, Russia, to America in order to succeed. This essay will demonstrate how in order to rise in America David Levinsky had to change the way he practiced Judaism, from being an orthodox and becoming a conservative focusing on the events where he is a “greenhorn no more.” Abraham Cahan had two insights that helped him understand the process of fitting in society. The first insight was
Presently, the notion that literary work resembles the cultural background of the author is evidently available as the image of the Jew was evil during the Elizabethan era. At this point, what is historically known of European Christianity was that most Jews documented where anti-Christ, therefore, deemed as a threat to the social order and were given the stereotypical attributes of the devil. Furthermore, in Elizabethan phraseology, Jews were an undesirable populous in society as they were represented as a disturbance to the natural order for their separate views, while Christianity was the ruling religion from the middle ages to the Renaissance and through to the age of Enlightenment. (Ganyi, 2013, p. 3) Yet, anti-Semitism first began to
Hi all, I’m here today to ask you all one question. Does the Western Literary Canon share significance and relevance to everyone? But before that, one simple question. What is literature? Isn’t it just a bunch of words gathered on paper? One of the unbroken problems focused from this topic is that there has never been a stable predetermined definition of what exactly literature is. Yet it can be argued that the ‘Western Literary Canon’ was the first attempt of literary criteria. The criteria - the ‘Western Literary Canon’-of which we judge or categorize literary works to be considered good, bad or average, may change due to cultural beliefs and or the time period and place of which we are present. The Canon is a contested space made up of many literary works criticized by the decider, who and what gets in changes depending on the eye of the beholder, respectability or knowledge of the decision maker. These aspects of literary criticism emerge from social and economic changes within society. The concept of how and why these deciders assume and select what is classed as ‘worthy’ literature is what I have an issue with, and this will be the point being made clear.