Debates Around Canonicity Flashcards
What do canons emerge out of?
Out of a number of formative practices (books, award ceremonies, media coverage, discussion between fans or experts of a field) and altogether the canon emerges without anyone pinning it down
Is it a good thing to try and pin a canon down?
No
What do attempts to impose a canon usually end in?
Failure - why have you put X in and not Y?
Same thing seen every time there is a list of the 10 best movies etc. or 10 best records of 2022 etc. Why haven’t you included this? blah blah blah
Can’t trace the source of a canon to an author or an organisation - usually doesn’t succeed
E.g., Danish cultural canon of 96 essential works of art/Danish culture - they got absolutely hammered for what they included and what they didn’t
For a canon to work, what does it need to be?
Needs to be implicit
Needs to have implicitly shared consent among experts and gatekeepers etc.
Where is there a clash in terms of canons?
There is a clash between canons based on exclusion (set of criteria for deciding what should be in and what should be out) and canons of representation (where people who manage the canon feel that they need to represent a diverse range of voices or people who you don’t want to exclude for fear of being prejudice)
Clash between a canon that’s based solely on the material itself and a canon that is more social and represents different groups of people who might otherwise be excluded if you are ridgidly applying artistic criteria
Why do we have canons of representation?
The vast majority of people who are usually canonised are white and male. They usually possess priviledge. Especially canons in art and cultural canons generally.
Need to stop this from happening by changing the artistic rules of inclusion or try and deliberately make the canon more diverse to represent different groups (gender/ethnicity/sexuality etc.) in the canon
What is a debate surrounding canons of social representation?
If you are going to make a canon socially representative, why keep or have Shakespeare in it?
What could be considered an elitist act?
The desire to make lists and specify classics
Canonising and privileging certain individuals (e.g., white males)
What is the purpose of the canon? What are canons for? What is the point of having canons?
Canons pin down genre. One function of canons is to impose parameters around a cultural field. The canon defines the field. Tells us what the field should look like.
What is classificatory imagination?
The cognitive drive to organise information
We have a drive to select and categorise things and use information to simplify the world
What might the cognitive imperative to simplify categorise and classify things result in?
Prejudice (Tajfel)
What could elitism of canons emerge from?
The process of canonisation in the first place - the practice of identifying the best and determining/defining the field for anybody coming in to it (have to learn about Beethoven etc. if you want to do something with classical music)
How does genre come out of classification?
We classify things as being alike one another
Certain characteristics of the music (beat, timbre, quality of the vocals/instruments) will define certain artists as a particular genre. The genre follows on from the work of canonised people (e.g., reggae and Bob Marley).
What are canons for?
Canons are inevitable. They are ways to organise information.
What are canons for?
Canons are inevitable. They are ways to organise information. A certain amount of canonisation is going to have to happen.
Informing people who are new to a topic. Experts tell information so people can learn. We need the canon.
