On Today's Agenda

It's Monday, and that's my long day this quarter. I got in about an hour ago (10 am), and won't leave until after 9 pm, when my night class gets out and I hit the freeway home.

So: what am I up to today?

***

Spent some time this morning on a committee project. I'm chair of our department's one-year-old Curriculum Committee, ascending to that noble throne last month. On the table first is a new one-course "Diverse Traditions" requirement for English majors, which we approved last year without ever quite defining what counted as a "Diverse Traditions" course.

Heh.

As you can imagine, this has led to a certain amount of internal wrangling & Chicago-style politicking. I'm not at liberty to divulge the details, but broadly speaking, we're having to decide which courses will count for this requirement.

Here's some of the language I've been playing with to define the requirement, which I'll bring to the committee and to the department overall in the future for debate. Your thoughts, everyone?

In “Diverse Traditions” courses, students will study authors, texts, or topics that have historically been marginalized by the dominant culture’s literary canon. [I keep wanting to add, "hereinafter referred to as "DCLC," pronounced "De Klerk," but I'll save that for the meetings.]

To receive “Diverse Traditions” status, a course must focus on at least one of the following:

1. Works in English by racially or ethnically marked authors (e.g., Latino/a, Asian American, African American, Native American authors), with attention to how such categories of difference have been constructed and contested over time;

2. Works in English by women, especially authors who have historically been excluded from the literary canon, with attention to how the relationships between gender, authorship, and social power have been constructed and contested over time;

3. Works in English by sexual minorities, especially authors who have historically been excluded from the literary canon, with attention to how the relationships between sexuality, authorship, and social power have been constructed and contested over time;

4. Works in English by working-class authors, especially authors who have historically been excluded from the literary canon, with attention to how the relationships between class, authorship, and social power have been constructed and contested over time;

5. Works in English by immigrant, exiled, or diasporic authors, especially authors who have historically been excluded from the literary canon, with attention to how the relationships between national identity, authorship, and social power have been constructed and contested over time;

6. Works in English by religious minorities, especially authors who have historically been excluded from the literary canon, with attention to how the relationships between religion and social power have been constructed and contested over time;

7. Non-Anglophone works (in translation) from predominantly Anglophone countries (e.g., Britain, Ireland, the United States), with attention to how such literature complicates or counterpoints the national literary narrative of that country;

8. Works by Anglophone authors from outside England and the United States, especially by authors who have historically been excluded from the Anglo-American literary canon;

9. Works of new interest in light of emerging categories of diversity (e.g., Disability Studies, Masculinity Studies), if the course introduces students to these emerging theoretical approaches in a way that will profitably complicate the way these works are taught or read in other contexts.

By separating these out, my plan is to allow debate and voting--if necessary--on each one, line by line, so that no single category can sink or delay the program as a whole.