I am in no position to dispose of Shakespeare, and would not advocate
such.  I am an American Lit teacher, and so have no frequent contact
with the Bard.  Teaching Zane Grey in no way implies hostility to "the
canon", particularly in that _Riders of the Purple Sage_ is quite
frequently taught, and is an early landmark of the Western genre, much
like _The Virginian_ by Owen Wister.  After finishing Grey, I've just
completed teaching Sinclair Lewis's _Babbitt_, and am moving on next
week to short stories by Hemingway.  At the end of my class sessions, I
often teach small portions of _The Waste Land_, and am planning on
teaching some poems from _Cathay_ and maybe some "Mauberly" (teaching
difficult poems to non-English majors seems to work best when done
gradually, in that the students have time to become familiar with
something that appears at first impenetrably dense.)

I am an advocate of the AmLit canon, and am a fan of Melville, Whitman,
Thoreau, Twain, and of course, many modern poets.  On the other hand,
the frequently overlooked writers (such as Finley Peter Dunne, whose
"Mr. Dooley" columns were once widely read by the American public)
often prove just as fascinating.  Everyone should read (one
of)Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, but they should also read
Martin Delany's _Blake_, which plays the role of Malcolm X to
Douglass's Rev. King (sort of) despite being almost everywhere unheard
of.  Just the same, people should read _The Scarlet Letter_ at some
point -- it's a classic for a reason, even if the reason seems opaque
when you're fifteen years old -- but they should also read George
Lippard's _The Quaker City_.  I could keep giving examples of worthy
books excluded from course reading lists, but I have a feeling my point
is clear.

-Jon

On Thursday, February 13, 2003, at 10:44  AM, Tim Romano wrote:

> Jon,
> Am I misreading you when I infer from the following that you're
> inclined to
> "dispose of" Shakespeare (as you teach Zane Gray)?
> Tim Romano
>
>
> At 11:12 AM 2/13/03, Jon & Anne Weidler wrote:
>> The "normal" (read white American) graduate students take
>> classes side by side with their South Asian counterparts, and realize
>> abruptly that some adjustments must be made to their own parochial
>> (and
>> often quite innocent, I feel I must add) preconceptions about global
>> politics and migration and Caliban's structural role in  _The
>> Tempest_.
>>  This process responds to more than an intellectual desire to
>> demonstrate adequate self-loathing, and very well might leave people
>> asking , honestly, what was so undisposably great about the Great
>> Books
>> of the West.
>