Are 'Great Books' Obsolete?
booksmartstudios.org
booksmartstudios.org
The reality is that this line of attack has been going on for a long, long time in regards to the Great Books. I've been reading about people saying this same exact thing for decades.
Amna Khalid, who wrote this, her opinion is same as pretty much a lot of others that have gone before her.
As far as the "Great Books", AKA "The Western Canon", go, it part of Western culture. They are there because those books have withstood the test of time. Like today, there are always crappy authors that don't make it, from any age, in any culture. And unlike many (most), I have read most of the books from the Western Canon. As an aside, this really ruins me from reading any books on the New York Times list. The depth of those Great Books is truly remarkable. The Times list...not so much. Anyways, there is a literary tradition, from Homer, from about 750 BC, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two of the foundations of all Greek literature. Aeschylus - 525/524 BC, and so on. On and on. They represent the tradition and history of Western Civilization, which, of course, is evil, evil, evil. And, Amna Khalid - apparently she is supposedly a historian - an Associate Professor of history at Carleton College. Born in Pakistan, Amna earned an M.Phil. & D.Phil. from Oxford University. I don't know, I guess somehow she is unbiased. With Amna Khalid's M.Phil. & D.Phil., this supposedly qualifies her to "teach history" at Carleton College. Although to me, it seems like she is teaching philosophy of how bad Western Culture is, rather than history. It's the standard grievance studies line.
Any culture that has books from 2,500 years ago, and follows an unbroken literary tradition for 2,500 years, is worthy of note. I've read the Hindu Bhagavad Gita from India, written around 2,500 BC to 2,200 BC. The I Ching. I'm not all twisted up inside because I am white - I don't think that books from other cultures are oppression. And, white people and Chinese people didn't hardly know each other, what's there to "oppress"?
The thing is - there are other literary canons. There ARE lists of Great Books from Asian, Black, Central and South America.
While a black canon is being developed, there certainly are great books by black men and women. James Baldwin’s, The Fire Next Time, E. Franklin Frazier’s, Black Bourgeoisie, Cater G. Woodson’s, The Mis-Education of the Negro. Frederick Douglass is a particular hero of mine.
Asian Literary canon may include:
、Pre-Imperial and Early Imperial (Before 220AD):
The Book of Songs, edited by Confucius
The Spring and Autumn Annals, edited by Confucius
The Analects, by Confucius
Mencius, by Mencius
The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu
Chuang Tzu, by Chuang Tzu
The Songs of the South, by Qu Yuan
Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian
二、Mid Imperial and High Imperial (220AD-1279AD):
The Poetry of Tao Yuanming (also known as Tao Qian or T’ao Ch’ien)
The Poetry of Wang Wei
The Poetry of Li Bai (a.k.a. Li Po)
The Poetry of Du Fu (a.k.a. Tu Fu)
The Poetry of Han Yu
The Poetry of Bai Juyi (a.k.a. Po Chu-i)
The Poetry of Su Shi (a.k.a. Su Tung-po)
The Poetry of Li Qingzhao (a.k.a. Li Ch’ing-chao)
三、Late Imperial and Early Modern (1279AD-1912AD):
Romance of the Western Chamber, by Wang Shifu
The Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu
The Palace of Eternal Life, by Hong Sheng
The Peach Blossom Fan, by Kong Shangren
The Plum in the Golden Vase, by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, by Pu Songling
Unofficial History of the Scholars, by Wu Jingzi
The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin
.
However, all these other cultures have their own literary canon, ie great books. Should we also say that those books are no good?
I suppose that Amna Khalid knows full well of the Great Books from other literary traditions, and that those can be taught, or like me, read on one's own (universities are supposed to teach people to think and become autodidacts. So since she knows that there are other lists for other cultures, freely available, I suspect her agenda is to continue the overall attack on the white male patriarchy, just use a different avenue for the continuous attack on Western civilization that is all the rage of all the universities.
I mean, even mathematics is now an evil white male patriarchical oppression. google it if you don't believe me.