Canons don’t only belong to dead white Englishmen. We have a Māori canon too
Literary canons have real-world effects – they steal limelight from everyone else. We can challenge them by drawing attention to how they work
I feel sheepish to admit how deeply affected I was when I encountered the research of Gauri Viswanathan, a professor in English at Columbia University in New York City. In Masks of Conquest: Literary study and British rule in India, she traces the history of English back to when it was first systematically taught as a secular discipline. I ask my students: where do you think English was first taught as a discipline? “England?” someone will always guess, realising it seems so obvious there must be a trick.
And yes, they’re right. It’s a trick.
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