Is the Canon Dead?

Jodie A. Malmberg '94, who is graduating today, is a little concerned about the value of her Harvard education.

"I sometime worry about talking to people and having them say, 'What you've never read Dante and you've graduated from Harvard?''' she says.

Malmberg's worries, professors say, may represent the growing ambivalence about what students should get out of a Harvard education.

Thirty years ago a liberal arts education was defined by the Western canon. The University felt it had a mission to ensure that no student would leave Harvard without a strong basis in Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, and of course, the Bible.

"There was a sense that we worked to a degree in the shadow of great texts," says Charles S. Maier '60 Krupp Foundation professor of European studies.

Now, although many professors say they would like students to leave Harvard well-versed in the cannon, they insist it is not up to the University to impose upon students one particular body of knowledge.

With different perspectives challenging more traditional approaches, professors say freedom to choose what they learn--even if it means graduating without having read The Divine Comedy.

Contemporary Perspectives

The Western canon that so closely shaped a liberal arts education a generation ago is still a foundation of many academic fields, many professors agree.

However, because of the increasing influence of new disciplines such as it was once defined, is too limiting an educational goal.

"It has always seemed to me that this problem of the canon was misstated because it always seemed to me that there are so many things worth knowing," says Professor of Afro-American Studies and of Philosophy K. Anthony Appiah.

"I'm not terribly fond of discussion about the canon," adds Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France Stanley H. Hoffmann. "I think it's trendy. What people consider to be the cannon changes every two or three years. I think much of that is quite vapid."

But with the cannon no longer shaping the basis of a common body of knowledge, nothing has emerged to fill the void.

"I don't think it's our job to define a body of knowledge that is worth knowing," Appiah adds.

And even though professors interviewed were eager to offer informal opinions on the canon at Harvard, many say that the full faculty no longer discusses what students should know upon graduating.

"You do hear discussions about the effects of affirmative action, you do hear discussions about what happens in other universities and what happens in speech codes, but I have not attended any hand-waving or heart-wrenching discussions about the canon," Hoffmann says.

Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature Gregory Nagy suggest that Harvard professors use the word" canon" as a catchphrase because they no longer debate or discuss what the content of a liberal arts education should be.

We've lost the knack to think about liberal education on a daily basis," Nagy says, referring to "the obsolescence of the usage of 'liberal education' as a term."

But Stansfield Professor of International Peace Robert O. Keohane attributes this silence to Harvard's status as a large research institution.

"I think it's a feature of a major university," Keohane says. "When I was on a small college faculty, we talked about it all the time. In a big university, the division of labor sets in and there are core committees."

"As long as one think as I do, that the curriculum seems to be in good shape," that division of labor is not bothersome, Keohane says.

Timeless Texts

A few professors still think, however, that despite the lack of consensus on what Harvard graduates should know, there is still a group of texts essential for an undergraduate education.

"I don't think it's difficult to design a list of 20, 30, 40 books. I certainly would have no problem," Baird Professor of History Richard Pipes says. "There are books that have made a very major impact on Western thinking: Locke's two books on human understanding and government, Rousseau's Social Contract, Mills On Liberty, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics...and the Bible," to name a few.

Most faculty members interviewed, however, were reluctant to come up with such a list. And even those who did endorse certain works said they did not want to force students to read them.

"I don't believe in forcing students into a straitjacket," Keohane says. "If someone wants to get through Harvard without ever reading Shakespeare or knowing what the French Revolution was, I suppose they could do it, but that would be foolish."

Requiring courses might make students resent what they learn though they may appreciate it later, one English professor says.

"You learn when you teach required course that there is always a trade-off," says Porter University Professor Helen H. Vendler. "I personally feel sorry for people who are going to die without reading a poem by Horace or play by Aeschylus, but that's up to them."

Most professor say they are confident in Harvard students' ability to discern what they should know and to seek it out for themselves.

"I think there has been a sense--this may be a slightly romantic view of my colleagues--that Harvard students are on the whole sensible enough and bright enough to be able to pick through the very considerable range of offering which they have," says Williams Professor of History and political Science Roderick MacFarquhar.

"I think that very good students always find out what they need t know," Vendler adds. "They oddly find themselves migrating into Bible classes or Latin classes."

No common cultural Legacy

Although professors say they do not want to mandate specific bodies of knowledge, they fear that students no longer have a solid grounding of common cultural legacies.

Appiah worries that when he alludes to the Bible during lecture, students look at him blankly.

"I think that it's good to have a sense of the Old Testament, not because I'm a religious person, but because I'm...worried when I make a reference to something I take to be common knowledge aboutjob's patience or Daniel in the lion's den andfind I'm talking to someone who doesn't know whatI'm talking about," Appiah says.

Some professor say students should come tocollege already knowing the basic tenets toWestern thought.

"The university is too late, entirely toolate," Vendler says. "Any ideal university will bewelcoming at its entrance people whose memorieshad already been superbly trained."

But professor admit that most high schools donot give students such a grounding.

When Pipes was conducting interviews for hisfreshman seminar on Russian intellectual history afew years ago, he grilled 100 students applyingfor 10 or 12 places.

"I didn't ask them anything about theirknowledge of Russia," pipes says. "I did askeveryone what classics of Western literature theyhad read."

A few had read Crime and Punishment but"they read it more as a thriller," Pipes says.Some of those who had taken French had readMadame Bovary. But none of them had readDickens, Tolstoys, Salinger or Kafka, Pipes says.

"I was very upset by that," Pipes says. "Theseare a self-selected group of freshman who have aninterest in intellectual history. What can you dowhen they don't know these things?"

A policy of Inclusion

Although professors say they regret students'lack of familiarity with many classical texts,they say that in college, students should beintroduced to different perspectives.Incorporating contemporary views into coursesyllabi, for example, can only enrich thetraditional canon, they say.

"There has been no loss of respect for what youcall the traditional Western canon, nor any sensethat we should degrade it in any way," saysProfessor of Education Richard Light.

"It's rather more of an effort towardsinclusion of what was not in the curriculum ageneration ago--more on foreign cultures, more onwomen, and more on non-whites," Light adds. "Iview it as a wonderful constructive development."

Professor of Government Seyla Benhabibincorporates feminist perspectives on traditionaltexts into her core course, Moral Reasoning 50,"The Public and the Private." She does not believethat students lose anything from studyingphilosophers such as Aristotle, Hobbles and Lockefrom a contemporary perspective.

"I would like to think that I'm both able togive them the standard interpretation and thestandard textual analysis and that I'm also ableto call attention to different issues, "Benhabibsays. "I have often called it the canon with atwist."'

Professors admit, however, that with inclusioncomes the question of limits. Placing new,contemporary authors on a course syllabus oftenmeans skimping on older ones, or cutting them outentirely. But they say the tradeoffs are worth it.

"This [inclusion] may mean that the timeallotted to studying the formerly canonicalauthors may be reduced, but one looks at them froma different perspective," says Assistant Professorof German Beatrice Hanssen, who is also a memberof the women's studies committee.

And others go further to say that the fullvalue of a liberal arts education can be realizedonly with a combined knowledge of the Westerncanon and more contemporary thought.

"The horizons of educated people haveincreasingly expanded during the twentieth centuryso that it has become harder and harder to equatethe European tradition with a knowledgeableperson," says Dean for Undergraduate EducationLawrence Buell.

Method vs. Content

Given the widespread disagreement over theproper content of a liberal arts education, manyprofessors say students should learn techniquesrather than ingesting one particular body ofknowledge.

"The ideal college education is one where astudent learns things he is not going to use inafter life, by methods that he is going touse," says Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles,quoting former Harvard President A. LawrenceLowell, Class of 1877.

Analysis, Appiah agrees, is often moreimportant than facts.

"That's the trick to get people prepared notfor just facts, and perhaps the distinctionbetween what you do and don't know," you do anddon't know," Appiah says.

And Keohane believes the University's job is toput students "in the position to make decision forthemselves."

To illustrate his point, Keohane tells anapocryphal tale about Robert Maynard Hutchins,once chancellor of the University of Chicago anddean of the Yale law school. Reputedly, Hutchinsonce entertained former president William HowardTaft.

Thinking of Yale as left-wing, Taft said toHutchins, "At Yale, I understand that you teachyou students that all justices are fools."

Hutchins replied, "No, Mr. Taft, at Yale weteach our students how to find that out forthemselves."

Reflections on the Canon's Decline

The majority of professors say the loss of theold western canon as an essential part of theundergraduate academic experience is more thancompensated for by the increased diversity ofperspectives and analysis.

"I really do think--I've been here for almost40 years--that the Harvard of today is a betterplace than it was when I came," Hoffmann says. "SoI'm not lamenting the passing of the old order."

And Vendler, while acknowledging the trade-off,nevertheless praises the new knowledge she saysstudents have gained.

"In the 17th century, they probably thoughtthat everyone should know the Bible," Vendlersays. "One can regret this. I certainly regretthat people no longer know Latin and no longerknow the Bible. On the other hand, every decreaseis matched by an increase of some sort. They knowa lot more about biology, neurobiology andreproductive control."

Ultimately, says this English professor, thecanon--no matter how much it is challenged--will"take care of itself."

"The canon is made by writers and not byprofessors or anthologists," Vendler concludes."Teachers and anthologists in the market have abrief and temporal reign for a given century."

But many say that although is no longerappropriate to mandate one body of knowledge forstudents, they miss the benefits of the oldcanon--and the old ways of teaching it.

Maier says that many of the traditional Westernworks used to provide a common ground forscholarly discussion.

"Books weren't in the canon by accident," Maiersays. "It does help when there are references."

"There are certain paradigms that literatureand philosophy give you about humanexperience--the paradigms of sin and redemption,of exile, of love and betrayal, of forbiddenknowledge," he adds. "Soap operas give us theseparadigms all the time, so why don't we give themat a level of higher artistic merit?"

And others say new perspectives can neverreplace the Western canon.

"They need Western civilization," Pipes says."With all respect for Afro-American studies andWomen's Studies they cannot compete in terms ofwealth and importance and tradition with Westerncivilization."

The canon teachers values and lessons that areessential for a good and productive life, Pipessays.

"You have to have values, I happen to thinkthat [those in the Western canon] are the bestvalues in the world," Pipes says.

"Students really emerge from four years ofcollege without any deep cultural roots, and thathas very serious consequences, because theknowledge of what has happened teaches you to copewith your own problems," Pipes adds.

Even Benhabib, who tries to integrate themodern perspective in her teaching of the ancientgreats, says that in the last 20 years studentshave becomes less interested in learning what camebefore them.

"To some extent, there is kind of ahistoricalattitude now," Benhabib says.

And some professors, thought they praise theacademic freedom of today's students, still lamentthe dissolution of the canon.

"I would feel a certain nostalgia of what hasbeen given up, and I don't know what has beengained," Maier concludes. "I think most of uswho've become academics carry around a canonwithin us, so we're sad when it dissipates."