11: Using the Canon

Introduction: The Use Value of High Culture

Joe Sartelle
People in academia now study popular culture from just about every sort of theoretical, methodological and ideological point of view.

Curing the Canon

Steven Rubio
What texts constitute the canon is less important than the mere existence of the canon as a marker of 'the best.'

Autobiography of a Misreading: Ibsen's The Wild Duck and Me

Charlie Bertsch
The more I thought about the way I had used The Wild Duck to restructure my everyday life, the more I perceived a contradiction.

It's Fun...But It Takes Courage: Remembering Frank Capra's America

Annalee Newitz
Nationalism has been notoriously xenophobic in practice, and yet it has also been undeniably useful for the purposes of consolidating group identities in areas populated by people from a variety of backgrounds.

Shopping for a Change: The House of Mirth and Paris is Burning

Jillian Sandell
I want to use The House of Mirth, and Edith Wharton's career as a writer, to explore the implications of an identity organized around the marketplace.