The Michigan Daily th ARTS Thursday, November 16, 1989 American Page 5 WI BY MIKE FISCHER THE best American novelists have found that in the very freedom of romance from the conditions of, actuality there are certain potential virtues of the mind... the very ab- stractions and profundity of ro- mance allow it to formulate moral truths of universal validity... --Richard Chase, The American Novel and its Tradition I came to graduate school four a years ago to study American litera- lat is the history of a select group of white men and a few white women, most of them either from or heavily influ- enced by a New England literary tra- dition marked by privilege and power. From its lofty heights, this tradition and the literary critics who pay it homage claim to define what is universal about a nation com- prised of many peoples and cultures. In .similar fashion, U.S. history is riddled with the ruins of peoples and cultures whose labor built this coun- try and whose voices - when they would not conform to Northern Eu- ropean ideas about tradition and his- tory, politics and production - were silenced. My first American literature course at the University, taught by the current chair of our department, literature? was a survey of 11 novels or short story collections, ten by white men, one by a very rich white woman. My professor, an excellent teacher and good scholar, did not con- sciously design his class to be so exclusive. But he did accept a defini- tion of American literature - one that he readily admitted was influ- enced by the Richard Chase book from which I quote above - that left him literally incapable of seeing what a circumscribed definition he had of the American tradition that he was teaching. Poetry Forgive me for helping you under- stand you're not made of words alone. -Roque Dalton, "El Salvador" How many classes purporting to teach American literature focus on the works of Latinos and Native Americans, Asian Americans and African Americans? Why is it that the rich literary traditions of these cultures - when the English or American Culture major encounters them at all - usually enter the cur- riculum through the back door? Reading Ralph Ellison's The Invisi- ble Man or N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn as part of an otherwise all-white syllabus hardly does either novel - or their respec- tive contexts - justice. It is not enough to include a Chi- cano novel here, an Asian American novel there, consequently forcing these and other texts to conform to the same old American standards and patterns - with their "universals" and "eternal truths" - against which such novels are consciously re- belling. Like assimilationist myths such as the "American melting pot" and the "Michigan Mandate," these token inclusions of communities of color are constructed on the condi- tion that those peoples sacrifice what makes them distinct if they wish to be included at the table and eat of the feast. To change the way American lit- erature is taught, then, we will need to do more than add a few authors here, a course or two there, and a re- quirement that English majors take at least one course focusing on women or people of color. All of these are steps in the right direction, but they have also taken place in a context where the old assumptions about what constitutes "good" litera- ture - or what questions about that literature are worth asking - remain largely unchanged. Poetry, as Dalton argues, con- cerns more than the words or their particular arrangement. It is also a political question about what those words do and who they are for. Why do we automatically assume that an Emily Dickinson, writing abstruse poems on rather abstract issues for a select audience, is any more "American" - or any more deserv- ing of being taught - than a great Chicana poet like Lorna Dee Cer- See LITERATURE, page 8 See LITERATURE, page 8 ture - to learn about the power of ;evil and the meaning of blackness, the pioneer spirit and our Calvinist heritage, American exceptionalism and its quest for adventure. I wasn't disappointed. In a series of courses with some very gifted and dedicated professors here, I traced Young Goodman Brown's journey into hell and Captain Ahab's journey into madness. I accompanied Huck ,Finn as he lit out for the territories and I meditated with Thoreau amidst the solitude of Walden. I read scores of essays about the uniquely Ameri- can tension between the self and so- ciety. And I simultaneously ignored hundreds of questions, thousands of authors, and millions of people whose experiences and cultures form an integral part of what we presume ,to designate the American experi- ence. American Literature - as it has traditionally been taught here at the u University and as it is taught throughout the United States - is Hair Styling with a Flair - 7 Barber Stylists for MEN & WOMEN - NO WAITING!! DASCOLA STYLISTS Opposite Jacobson's 668-9329 Starved For New Sounds, Hundreds Swarm to Record Town! "i AII FR' ,0 A state of emergency has been declared at a local university as students are flooding in masses to Record Town. "The campus is like a morgue" said one faculty member, "Even the bars are empty." School officials are citing "mysterious music" as the blame for this movement and a special task force has been set up to combat the problem. MELISSA ETHmERIDE BRAVE AND CRAZY - - TEARS FOR FEARS THE SEEDS OF LOVE FEAURNG SOWNGTHE SEEDS OF LOVE "WOMANIN CHANS"AND ADVICEFORTHEYOUNGATHEART" F A. 'Y"il In charge of the task force is head librarian Melvin Lipschitz, who offered this theory: "The music in question is obviously the work of either a satanic cult or some third world terrorist organization whose goal is to brain- wash our kids into blindly revolting against their parents, the school, the government, and America." Sophomore Ron Owens replied, "I'm just sick of my old tapes." The music that is causing such controversy is pictured here IEDREhI and Record Town has The sale is going on u that time officials areI will return to normal, concentrate their effo vampire sightings tha reported all over camp it on sale for just $5.99 on cassette and just $10.99 on compact disc. ntil 11/19. After BIG SAVINGS ON THESE PICTURED TITLES hoping things so they can rts on the t are being )us. a $n99 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS MOTHER'S MILK CONTAINS Knock Me Down Higher Ground *"Taste The Pam COSMIC THING the B-52's n e . ;