I’m currently working on a reading list for a friend. It’s a list of suggested readings build on two parts, foundational texts and advanced. The foundations include such authors as Augustine, Saîkaku, Montaigne, and Julius Caesar, while the advanced (in time) include Kristeva, Ong, and Feynman. The readings are world-oriented and cover intellectual history. This isn’t a list of favorites, but what I consider influencial texts across the areas of human concern and the human life-world, so we have poetry, politics, history, philosophy, architecture and science among the offerings.
So, you’re a canon builder. A friend comes to you in all honesty and asks for a “course” in the breadth of human making? What would your list include?
This looks like royal banquet fare for this lowly peasant. I drool in anticipation of such a feast.
But then, “I Wanna Be a Hilton!”
I would argue from a deconstructivist pov and say that there’s no such thing as a canon…because there’s no meaning in anything..hah!
I can understand your rejection of such a feast, Neha, but even post-structuralists need something to talk about, while not having to fall back on foundationalism or essentialism.
How about that for Ha!
Heck, there are times when I think that post-structuralists like nothing better than to sit around a square table (round is too structured for them, I think) and knock everything theory against the wall either out of pure spite or complete laziness.
On the other hand, you’re talkin’ to a Lit major here…I would never reject that feast listed up there…but I would challenge the pedestal.