Rethinking the Canon

Canon = a body of works or thinkers treated as especially important foundational and necessary to know

  1. Debrief if criteria reward

  • common criteria

  • Originality innovation

  • Represent major school

  • Neglected contribution

  • Question hidden inside them

  • Influence

  • Founder

  • Representation


  1. Neutral criteria already have historical

  • influence

  • Franz boas

  • Citation counts

  • work can get more circulated feedback loop

  • Reputation of what get cited frequently by met knowledge scholars every one has to cite

  • foundational

  • Institutions power to make something popular even nit the one that originated it

  • Readability

  • Genres of writing

  • Dance and poetry part of anthropology

  • Representatives of diversity

  • One person could be the representation in culture

  • Leaving out role of female anthropologist


  1. What becomes a canon ?

  • selection

  • Repetitive

  • Memory

  • authority


  1. White men

  • Author Sara Ahmed

  • His sexual harassment gets covered at university

  • Environment where white men are the norm

  • Unmarked categories - white

  • Marked categories - racialized


  1. Zoe todd

  • multi spices ethnographic


  1. Poem

  • post zora interventiontionist

  • floating signifyer

  • Meaning shifts overtime

  • Comes from linguistic is signifyer

  • example diversity

  • Student faculty

  • Hiring

  • Increase accessibility

  • Support systems

  • Money at every level


  1. Reading synthesis

  • Question is changing the reading list enough to change the canon ?