It’s a liberal cop-out to say that professors can teach solely to their “preferences” if they want to, as Gloria Mellesmoen does in the Oct. 7 article, “Professors are entitled to teach their preferences.” Professors should and do teach to their specializations, but unless that specialization is white male writers, a “preference” for white male writers in an academic sense is just veiled bigotry.
Being an academic is a privileged position. When a prof designs a reading list for a course on a specific genre or period, they aren’t just picking neato reads, they’re dictating what is worth studying in their field. When I took Early Canadian Literature (ENG 354) at SFU, Susanna Moodie and Pauline Johnson were included on the reading list because of their undeniably important contributions to Canadian literature. These early Canadian female writers would’ve been lost to history if it was taught by David Gilmour, the U of T professor who admitted to consciously omitting female authors from his lectures.
When female authors — and in the case of Gilmour, queer authors and authors of colour — go unrepresented on reading lists, it marks their contributions as irrelevant, or at least unworthy. If a department holds enough members of similar tastes, their “preferences” could remove authors from a literary canon for a generation of undergraduates.
Looking up the reviews for Dr. Deanna Reder on ratemyprof, you can see the effects of this ol’ white boys club approach to literature. Her English 101 Fall 2011 (Introduction to Fiction) course outline explicitly states, “the focus of this section . . . will be Aboriginal Fiction.” Three separate reviewers on ratemyprof had this to say: “We looked at a native comic book done in a japanese style this semester. not exactly english literature. talked too much about her race, nobody really cares.”; “I didn’t know shed make all the books native books. That wasn’t really fair.”; “Eng 101 isn’t even english, its aboriginal studies.” [Sic] to all this crap, p.s.
“Preferences” could remove authors from a literary canon for a generation of undergraduates.
Was the course material (which, for the record, was all written in English) not worthy of study because it wasn’t about a WASP protagonist? That’s highly problematic, given that there are literally millions of people writing texts in English who aren’t WASP-y assholes writing WASP-y narratives about their white people problems. If the general public, who, in part, pays these professors’ salaries continues to placate their dismissal of non-white heterosexual male voices, future generations’ understanding of literature will be incredibly limited.
Think of it this way: if a physics professor decided he wasn’t going to lecture on advancements in his field made by female, queer, and/or non-white researchers because their work just didn’t appeal to his “preferences,” he’d be a laughing stock. Empirical evidence is empirical evidence. You don’t get to pretend things didn’t happen or don’t exist because they don’t fit into your narrow world view when you are supposed to be one of the forefront thinkers in your field. The study of literature should be held to the same standards.
Professors should, obviously, teach to their areas of expertise, but as far as preference goes, like an English undergrad who doesn’t want to fulfill their medieval component, they can suck it up. When preferences deny the existence of works by differing voices in specific periods or genres, universities offer students a limited education and become complicit in this bigotry-by-omission.
Just because a professor doesn’t preach intolerance doesn’t mean they don’t passively promote it. When a student signs up for an English class, unless it’s specifically designated as a history of mansplaining, they should be able to expect a varied reading list.
