The idea of the canon, though innocuous enough to begin with, has been reappropriated on the one hand by apocalyptic cultural doom-mongers and on the other by cultural relativists. The debate, among those in academia, seems to be between two opposites, equally extreme: there either must be a canon and it must be defended, or there is no canon at all, and please just let us get on with reading whatever we want to read. [Read more →]