Abstract
This article discusses methods to determine canonical changes in graduate reading lists using a quantitative approach. Using diversity indexes common in ecology as well as simple data exploration and distance measure techniques to study levels of canonical dominance and gender equality, we compare over 90 samples from Hispanic Studies programs in the U.S. We use these indexes to study how some of these lists have changed over time and their success in representing the diversity of experiences and social groups in Spain and Latin America.
Highlights
With the exception of a shortlived debate about the merits of Rigoberta Menchú’s testimonio when it was included in the reading list of Stanford University’s re quired curriculum, and occasional mentions of Borges, Neruda, and Lorca, most of the authors taught in Spanish programs mattered little for the canon wars of the late 1980s.1 the opposite was the case for departments of Hispanic studies in the U.S Both the canon wars and the rise of cultural studies in the 1990s had a significant impact on their curriculum.[2]
Recognized periodicals in the field of Latin American studies such as Latin American Liter ary Review and Nuevo Texto Crítico published issues about the future of literary studies in Spanish, including articles focused on how to “expand their base.”[3]. Canon revisions inspired the first studies about gender equality and canoniza
Brown’s expla nation is that “we have no reason to suspect that required group reading lists are radically different today—80 percent of doctoral programs still use them, and samples available online show additions to earlier versions without sub tractions.”[7]. In another section of her study, she defends her use of old data again, arguing that new lists are virtually identical to those from the 1990s. In her opinion, “based on the sample graduate reading lists available online today: without exception, these lists add rather than dismantle what went before.”[8]. Not surprisingly, her conclusion is that reading lists have changed very little in two decades: “Components of the late twentiethcentury Spanish and Latin American literary canon in the United States were all written works, and they were all in Castilian Spanish
Summary
Measuring Canonicity: Graduate Read ing Lists in Departments of Hispanic Studies. José Eduardo González, Elliott Jacobson, Laura García García, Leonardo Bran dolini Kujman. Of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of NebraskaLincoln
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