Stanley Fish in his new book ["Save the World on Your Own Time" (New York: Oxford UP,2008)] says that composition studies presents "the clearest example" of what is desperately wrong in the academy, because in writing classrooms, he says, "more often than not anthologies of provocative readings take center stage and the actual teaching of writing…

Recognizing that many of us teach the medieval English women mystics Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich in survey courses, this essay attempts to put these writers in context for teachers who may have only a passing familiarity with the period. Focusing on passages of their writings found in the Longman and Norton anthologies of British…

Argues for the pervasive intervention of the Vietnam War in the cultural production of U.S. poetry. Questions the academic canon of post-World War II poetry and criticizes anthologies for ignoring Vietnam War poetry. Suggests why Vietnam War poetry has remained such an avoided subject. Lists anthologies including such poetry. (HB)

Explores the relation of essays to canon theory, explains why the only essay canon to be publicly identified in the 20th century is a powerful teaching canon. Shows "where essays live," how they arrive in the teaching canon, and why they stay there. Examines how essays are taught. Looks at the future of the essay canon. (SR)

Addresses the evolution of the most authoritative and widely used textbook in world literature courses in the United States, "The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces." Questions if the "Norton Anthology" has provided educators who are committed to the teaching of world literature from non-Eurocentric perspectives with a…

Considers the recent flood of anthologies of literary criticism and theory as exemplifications of the confluence of pedagogical concerns, economics of publishing, and other historical factors. Looks specifically at how these anthologies present theory. Cites problems with their formatting theory and proposes alternative ways of organizing theory…

Critically analyzes teachers' manuals for college literature anthologies. (SW)

Discussing the structural and philosophic changes in higher education, the author feels that because of its academic purity, poetry may help to bring about a new humanism." (Author/MB)

Literature anthologies are part of the furniture of English departments. Like the putty or gunmetal-gray file cabinet that one might have gotten new or used, they are not a showpiece of academic decor, but it would be hard to imagine work spaces without them. Indeed, they are omnipresent, amassed on the shelves of campus bookstores, weighing down…