What should everyone read?
April 19, 2011 10:07 PM Subscribe
What do you think should be in The College Canon? As opposed to the Western Canon, what do you think all college students should read before they graduate?
I frequently think about 'The Western Canon' and it seems pretty solid and well-argued. There are just some books that should be read by a person in their lifetime. But the recent blue post about all the things we'll never read, despite the existance of Sturgeon's Law , I was reminded of a 'canon' I thought of while in college many moons ago. I called it The College Canon, or the books one should read in college. I included on my list The Lord of the Rings, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but now I think that just reflects what a geek I am. So now I think I would like to compile a list of literary canons.
What should I include in:
The College Canon?
The Eastern Canon?
The Science Fiction Canon?
The Fantasy Canon?
The Humor Canon?
The American (or insert your country here) Canon?
The Drama Canon?
The Non Fiction Canon?
The Juvenile Canon?
The Young Adult Canon?
The Comic Book Canon?
What lists did I embarrassingly miss?
Also, please don't do what some list makers do, which is: "I choose item 1 and item 2, but my item 3 will be something super obscure that I think everyone should read, but isn't really that much of a contributing work to the category."
I frequently think about 'The Western Canon' and it seems pretty solid and well-argued. There are just some books that should be read by a person in their lifetime. But the recent blue post about all the things we'll never read, despite the existance of Sturgeon's Law , I was reminded of a 'canon' I thought of while in college many moons ago. I called it The College Canon, or the books one should read in college. I included on my list The Lord of the Rings, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but now I think that just reflects what a geek I am. So now I think I would like to compile a list of literary canons.
What should I include in:
The College Canon?
The Eastern Canon?
The Science Fiction Canon?
The Fantasy Canon?
The Humor Canon?
The American (or insert your country here) Canon?
The Drama Canon?
The Non Fiction Canon?
The Juvenile Canon?
The Young Adult Canon?
The Comic Book Canon?
What lists did I embarrassingly miss?
Also, please don't do what some list makers do, which is: "I choose item 1 and item 2, but my item 3 will be something super obscure that I think everyone should read, but isn't really that much of a contributing work to the category."
This post was deleted for the following reason: Glad the answers so far were helpful, but, yeah, this is broad to the point of being chatfilter as presented. -- cortex
Best answer: There are a lot of lists of "canons" out there, for example Columbia University and other colleges base their curricula on reading Great Books, so you should be able to find such lists easily. Here's one VERY comprehensive meta-list of lists of "great books" from the eastern and western canons.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:24 PM on April 19, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:24 PM on April 19, 2011
Response by poster: Oh those are great links. Damn it. I have terrible success searching for previous questions and posts. And I often choose not to ask at all... I should have just asked for the college thing.
Thanks for them. I'll go through them and put this question to bed.
posted by CarlRossi at 10:25 PM on April 19, 2011
Thanks for them. I'll go through them and put this question to bed.
posted by CarlRossi at 10:25 PM on April 19, 2011
Well, the question about the college canon might be answerable if you can spell out what your rules are for including a book. Presumably you DON'T want to include books that people should read as part of their college coursework, so for example The Republic or Das Kapital or Shakespeare wouldn't be on there? I mean, college is a time when you're already doing a lot of assigned reading of things that will change your perspective etc. So if the college canon is going to be different from the college curriculum, you'll need to spell out how.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:30 PM on April 19, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:30 PM on April 19, 2011
As someone who truly loved his traditional liberal arts college experience, I'd say "Western Canon" is good enough, with a sprinkling of Foucault and Derrida to stir up the problems of the notions of "Western" and "Canons." As difficult as the last two are, you can get their ideas in some of their most famous essays without having to dig too deeply. Either that or witha good teacher.
And since this is pretty much chat-filter alredy, why Lord of the Rings? So long and so completely reactionary in terms of its politics? Read one of the Christian gospels in an afternoon instead and you're done.
posted by bardic at 10:32 PM on April 19, 2011
And since this is pretty much chat-filter alredy, why Lord of the Rings? So long and so completely reactionary in terms of its politics? Read one of the Christian gospels in an afternoon instead and you're done.
posted by bardic at 10:32 PM on April 19, 2011
I could whip up a good Art School Loser Canon, but no one in Art School would read it, as it wouldn't have any pictures!
This was a major problem, as many of my classmates had what seemed to outsiders as major learning disabilities - ie: they couldn't read at a college level. It was just that they thought so visually, they were just slow readers, had major dyslexia, were alcoholics, etc :)
I don't know if canons actually work anymore in a cut/copy/paste culture ;)
posted by alex_skazat at 10:38 PM on April 19, 2011
This was a major problem, as many of my classmates had what seemed to outsiders as major learning disabilities - ie: they couldn't read at a college level. It was just that they thought so visually, they were just slow readers, had major dyslexia, were alcoholics, etc :)
I don't know if canons actually work anymore in a cut/copy/paste culture ;)
posted by alex_skazat at 10:38 PM on April 19, 2011
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You might be interested in Read Me, the Metafilter wiki page that lists previous questions relating to books. Lots of good previous questions to look at, such as What book is most representative of your country?
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:18 PM on April 19, 2011