Reconstructing American Literature: A Synopsis Of An Educational Project Of The Feminist Press

Abstract

As it has been taught in the overwhelming majority of college courses, and as it is embodied in all existing anthologies, has been part of the problem of educational inequality rather than as can be the case part of its solution. In the past, the teaching of American literature has insufficiently explored the work of women writers, and of minority writers of both sexes. As a consequence, it has limited the access of students to a full view of the past and has thus narrowed their potential for creatively shaping their futures. This project is designed to change the teaching of American literature and thereby to help fill out and enrich current definitions of the culture and heritage of the United States. It is still necessary in academe to emphasize the significance of a sense of and culture to individual self-definition. The aspirations of the 1960s movements for social justice, the emergence during the past decade of ethnic consciousness and a search for roots, the need to understand women's in order to develop the possibility of equality between the sexes these all argue for the importance of what we teach about our culture and our past. Yet the transformation of liberal arts curricula to reflect the heterogeneity and richness of American culture remains incomplete. Indeed, only some of the gains of the past decade have been institutionalized in mainstream curricula. If, however, we are able to succeed in reconstructing courses like those in American literature, we will contribute significantly to the intellectual processes by which students develop a sense of identity as well as to the accuracy of the social portrait understood as history and the appreciation of the aesthetic forms understood as literature.