Ethnic Canon: Histories, Institutions, and Interventions

Who determines what ethnic literature gets included in the standard educational canon? How does this decision making occur? The Ethnic Canon questions the current process, arguing that texts are added to the canon only after an operation that attempts to resolve and neutralize historical and political contradictions and differences. The Ethnic Canon offers a wide variety of critical viewpoints and speaks to the history and practice of canon formation within specific ethnic literatures. It is a unique collection in its pointed critique of the academy regarding particular authors and texts that have and have not been included in the canon. The texts examined include Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Américo Paredes's Between Two Worlds, Richard Rodriquez's Days of Obligation, and David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, along with the novels of Amy Tan, Filipino works, and Caribbean women's writings. Contributors include Norma Alarcón, University of California, Berkeley; Paula Gunn Allen, University of California, Los Angeles; Elliott Butler-Evans, University of California, Santa Barbara; Barbara Christian, University of California, Berkeley; Lisa Lowe, University of California, San Diego; Colleen Lye, Columbia University; Ramón Saldívar, Stanford University; E. San Juan Jr., University of Connecticut, Storrs; Rosaura Sánchez, University of California, San Diego; Jana Sequoya-Magdaleno, Stanford University; and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, University of California, Berkeley.