Canon

Canon

Wikipedia lists several meanings of the word "canon". The one most relevant in this connection is: "A canon refers to a list or collection of books and scriptures accepted by an ecclesiastic communion as authoritative or divinely inspired. See for example Tripitaka (Buddhism), Biblical canon (Jewish and Christian), and Taoist canon.

In a more general meaning it can also refer to a literary canon, a body of literature and art which is considered to define civilization by widespread consensus. See Western canon and Chinese classic texts." (Wikipedia, 2005).

Fyfe (2002) seeks a new way to conceptualize the 'classic' work in the history of science and suggests that the use of publishing history might help avoid the antagonism which surrounded the literary canon wars. She concentrates on the widely acknowledged concept that the key to the classic work is the fact of its being read over a prolonged period of time. Continued reading implies that a work is able to remain relevant to later generations of readers, and, although some of this depends upon the openness of the original text, much more depends on the actions of subsequent publishers and editors in repackaging the work for later audiences.

This is illustrated by Fyfe through an examination of the long publishing history of William Parley's Natural theology (1802). Over the course of the century, Natural theology was read as a work of gentlemanly natural theology, as a work which could be used in a formal or informal education in science, and as a work of Christian apologetic. These transformations occurred because of the actions of the later publishers and editors who had to make the work suit the current interests of the literary marketplace. Fyfe provides comparisons to "Constitution of man", "Vestiges of the natural history of creation" and "Origin of species".

Marsh (2004) argues that the existence of a canon of established and privileged texts in the primary literacy curriculum in England can be traced historically and has informed current national policy and practice. This canonization of a particular set of literature has served to marginalize popular cultural and media texts, often the preferred texts of children in contemporary society. The paper examines the historical development of an established, hegemonic body of texts and critically analyses current national curricula frameworks for primary literacy in order to determine the way in which reading material is framed. It is argued that current national policy enshrines particular textual traditions at the expense of more popular forms of material and that this has major implications for the relevance of the future primary literacy curriculum.

Pike (2003) examines the debate about the English literature canon in schools. It evaluates the importance of the canon in a 21st-century curriculum and considers its relevance to adolescent readers saturated in early 21st-century culture who have disparate identities and diverse backgrounds. The implications for teaching and learning of the chronological, social, cultural, and linguistic distance between pre-20th-century canonical texts and today's readers are examined in the light of the theoretical perspectives of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. These perspectives are applied to findings from a recent 3-year longitudinal case study of 13-16-year-olds reading canonical texts and of the responsive teaching they experienced.

McElhinny et al. (2003) shows how feminist scholars have begun to ask how existing conceptual schemes and organizational structures in academic disciplines have excluded women and feminist ideas, and provide suggestions for transformation. One strand of this work has been the exploration of how canons of thought are constructed in such fields as economics, sociology, and sociocultural anthropology. McElhinny et al. (2003) begin such an investigation for sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology by reviewing how gender correlates with publication and citation over a 35-year period (1965-2000) in five key journals, and in 16 textbooks published in the 1990s. They describe some marked differences in the publication of works by women and on gender in the five journals, as well as some significant differences in the degree to which men and women cite the work of women. They also consider how the rate of publication of articles on sex, gender, and women is correlated with publication of female authors. They conclude with a discussion of the implications of this study for changing institutional practices in the field.

Cyzyk, M. (1993) tries to conceptually clarify the precise function and duties of the collection development librarian. In so doing, the relevance of current literary research surrounding canon formation to collection development is suggested. Methods of collection evaluation and development are discussed and shown to be intimately tied to existing canons of research materials and interests. The fact that canons are in flux, and that traditional collection development strategies attempt to anchor themselves in such protean entities, results in a dilemma for the collection development world. On the one hand, collections must be aimed at satisfying the needs of the current user group. On the other hand, the collection development librarian has a more cosmopolitan duty to collect items that are not currently of interest or do not directly relate to what is currently deemed canonical, yet may become so in the future. With such a precarious professional position in mind, various strategies for a solution to the dilemma are sketched.

The word canon should not be confused with canon understood as basic principles.

Literature:

Clausen, E. (2005). Den skadelige kanon. København: Tiderne skifter. (Pamflet 1).

Cyzyk, M. (1993). Canon formation, library collections, and the dilemma of collection development. College & Research Libraries, 54(1), 58-65.

Denemark, R.A. & OBrien, R. (1997). Contesting the canon: International political economy at UK and US universities. Review of International Political Economy, 4(1), 214-238.

Doherty, J. J. (1998). The academic librarian and the hegemony of the canon. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 24(5), 403-406.

Fyfe, A. (2002). Publishing and the classics: Paley's Natural theology and the nineteenth-century scientific canon. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 33A(4), 729-751.

McElhinny, B.; Hols, M.; Holtzkener, J.; Unger, S. & Hicks, C. (2003). Gender, publication and citation in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology: The construction of a scholarly canon. Language in Society, 32(3), 299-328.

Marsh, J. (2004). The primary canon: A critical review. British Journal of Educational Studies, 52(3), 249-262.

Nordloh, D. J. (1985). Aiming the canon - The Library-of-America and the publishers of scholarly editions have their differences - They reflect different conceptions of publishing and the role of public subsidy. Scholarly Publishing, 16(2), 109-119.

Pike, M.A. (2003) The canon in the classroom: students' experiences of texts from other times. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(3), 355-370.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Cannon (Collection). (2005). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_%28collection%29

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Kanonudvalget. Pressemeddelelse den 23. september 2004

http://presse.uvm.dk/nyt/pm/pm230904.htm?menuid=641015

Kanonudvalgene. PRESSEMEDDELELSE 18. april 2005

http://www.kum.dk/sw23307.asp