Confronting our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century (review)

Joan Brown courageously broaches a controversial topic, namely: the need for a common canon in Spanish and Latin American Studies. Brown’s call for action is based on numerous arguments. Perhaps, the most powerful is the finding that the core canon of a survey of fifty-six graduate reading lists is based on three universal items: Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes and one of a combination of titles by Benito Pérez Galdós. The eight other common works from Spain are: El poema del Mio Cid, Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora, Juan Ruiz’s El libro del buen amor, Fernando de Rojas’ La celestina, Tirso de Molina’s El burlador de Sevilla, Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño, Francisco de Quevedo’s El buscón, and some portion of Mariano José de Larra’s Artículos de costumbres. The only other common element was Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad. These readings were complemented by the work of twenty authors, mainly from Spain, such as Juan Manuel, Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de León, and San Juan de la Cruz; Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega; (Leopoldo Alas) Clarín, José Espronceda, Adolfo Béquer (SIC), and Rubén Darío; Miguel de Unamuno, Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Camilo José Cela, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, and Jorge Luis Borges (166–67).

Among factors contributing to this Balkanization, Brown notes that the autonomy of the local graduate faculties is much greater regarding values that are never enunciated or compared (168). More importantly, literary training “varies widely from one institution to another,” and fragmentation is emphasized by specialization (169). In addition to economic factors, such as the reduction of doctoral granting institutions to forty-nine, Brown notes that only thirty-nine rely on reading lists for the whole cohort; therefore, those whose profession is the study of literature may not share common conceptions of value (168). According to Brown, the lack of a shared background leads to: “failure to situate research in the currents of extant scholarship, resistance to new theoretical models, reluctance to abandon inherited classification systems such as the literary generation, and even the preference for foreign over autochthonous literary theory” (169). Strikingly, Brown notes, “required reading for an advanced degree in Spanish was no broader, and not much deeper, than what is covered in a typical introductory survey” (169). In other words, gaping lacks include: the 18^th Century, “literature by women, gays, non-Castilians, non-Catholics, victorious oppressors, exiled patriots or residents of most of the Hispanic world,” film and other cultural artifacts (170–71).

Therefore, Brown proposes, “a central core ringed by ever expanding circles of choices” (179). Thus the central material—readings judged indispensable—would be surrounded by items (works, authors, literary history, literary theory, representative samples of certain categories [genre, gender, nationality]), which elicit a weaker consensus (178–79). Though Brown does not clearly articulate how the core could be identified, the advantage of the surrounding floating rings is that they would allow for canon evolution (179).

Among the reasons articulated to support this call to action, Brown includes the national standards and accountability movements, which are currently focusing on “the dismal literacy statistics for U.S. college graduates” (173), and the growing impact of Spanish in higher education, since “Spanish is now studied by more than twice as many undergraduate students as all other languages combined” (185). Finally, to ensure the viability of this call to action, Brown proposes to rely on the authority and the process of those involved in the Hispanic divisions of the MLA (182), a questionable strategy, considering its inherently political implications.

Since Brown’s is a controversial book, reader response will vary greatly. Some colleagues will opt for the...