Word: canonically
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...mirrors the Catholic-Protestant sectarianism of Glasgow's Celtic versus Rangers. It stretches back before Indian independence and is embedded into the very fabric of Kolkata society. Prices for prawn and hilsa, the preferred seafood of each community, fluctuate depending on the results of the clubs' matches. An entire canon of Bengali films, plays and poems surrounds the eight-decade-old rivalry, as if all of Kolkata lives in the shadow of these football-playing Montagues and Capulets...
...Some may argue that British literature is the logical foundation for study of any literature written in English, and that reading such a canon will inform the way concentrators approach other literature. While a thorough study of a particular country or region’s literature no doubt broadly prepares concentrators to study that of other countries, there is no reason that only the West’s English-language literature should be able to provide that larger context...
...setting up widely agreed upon “classics,” (“Beowulf,” “Paradise Lost,” and “Pride and Prejudice”) as an entrenched canon, the English department takes a political stance: It suggests that Western English-language literature is the foundation of all English-language literature, and upholds the West’s cultural output as a standard against which all English literature should be measured...
...disservice by setting them up to measure a Gish Jen or Toni Morrison against the cultural standards of a Marlow or a Swift—while some Western European standards may inform their writing, the same literary tradition does not wholly apply to these authors, who descend from a canon remarkably distinct from that of old European or English works. Students will be even less equipped to approach works of authors such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, who writes in English, but whose national and cultural experiences are informed by situations far different from those of canonical writers...
...department needs to shake off its narrow perspective, and allow for a broader definition of the canon and its place in undergraduate education. Not only would this move it away from an old-fashioned, West-centric viewpoint; it would also teach English concentrators to think critically about the canon itself as a cultural artifact, rather than a set of literary scriptures...