LitHum is not enough.
Painting by Shen Zhou, 1467. National Library of China, Photo Credit: Public Domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
This observation should resonate with two groups of students in the class of 2027. The first group consists of those (there are some out there) who are excited to begin LitHum, who feel keenly the limitations of two weeks spent on the Iliad and recognize the travesty of rushing through Crime and Punishment, who sense that there is more – more to be gleaned from each of these texts, and more texts, for that matter, to be explored than are contained on the LitHum syllabus.
Besides being small, this first group is likely already on board with the argument that follows – but the second group I hope to reach is perhaps larger, and needs more persuading. This group consists of those students who feel the limitations of LitHum in a different way – who sense that the LitHum syllabus is a somewhat arbitrary selection of “significant” texts, and that in its arbitrariness the syllabus is exclusive, based on notions of “significance” and “Western-ness” that leave out various historically marginalized perspectives. While these students might enjoy the texts they read in LitHum, they may worry that, from the outset of their Columbia careers, they are being presented with a lopsided view of what constitutes a “great tradition” – and so are limiting their learning.
Such students no doubt recognize that no single “canon” fits all the criteria of a modern definition of “diversity,” precisely because that definition is modern. Thus, to apply the diversity paradigm as the only filter onto any particular canon is to engage in a reverse form of exclusion, one that is chronological in nature and overlooks modern blind spots.
This warning against a “presentism” that seeks to unsettle the notion of a canon itself, while overlooking its own unquestioned – one might say canonical – assumptions, has been made elsewhere. As for the term “canon,” I take it to mean (loosely) a series of texts across time engaged in conversation with each other. In discussions with friends, I find the image of a river to be helpful: a river exists in a state of swirl, and it can be hard to say where one part of the river – one text, as it were – fades into another, or is carried along through a series of eddying pamphlets and forgotten influences until the next “classic” work of literature arises. There are junctions where rivers merge, and estuaries where it is impossible to say where the river ends and the ocean begins. Some of these mergers, like the translation of Greek philosophy into Islamic thought, or the syncretism of Buddhism and Daoism, are among the most fascinating periods of history.
Though such mixing-points exist, it should nevertheless be possible to identify a particular river. Just as the flora and fauna, the geography, the currents tell us we are sailing down the Mississippi and not the Nile, so should an extended refutation of Plato suggest that we are likely dealing with what has traditionally been called a “Western” text, and not one from the Chinese or Indian classical traditions. This point suggests that a key way to identify a “canon” is to know that other canons exist. If we have been sailing all our lives down one river, we may fancy that the notion of a “river” is meaningless; but if we see a map and realize there are other rivers – other streams of thought, other spheres of influence – then we may both appreciate the singularity of our own river, and be spurred on to explore the others.
This is where I make my proposal for freshman year. On the Core website, buried in the long list of classes approved for the Global Core, are two classes called the “Colloquium on Major Texts: Middle East and South Asia” and the “Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia” – AHUM 1399 and 1400, respectively. These names are criminally clunky and hardly suggestive of catchy abbreviations like “LitHum” – thus, perhaps, masking the fact that these classes were designed in part to rectify the limitations of LitHum and provide an exposure to the canonical texts of other cultures. As such, these classes deserve to be better known, particularly among incoming students. From my own experience, I suggest that they make excellent freshman-year classes to take, one each semester, alongside LitHum.
Naturally, the question arises as to why belabored first-years dealing with the reading and writing load of LitHum would take on two other text-heavy classes. This point is hard to argue with, but I appeal again to those students of both camps who recognize that LitHum alone is not enough. Taking these classes alongside LitHum will take some work, but it is worthwhile work – the work of expanding horizons and of gaining a broader sense of the different traditions of thought that continue to play a part in the world today. Because these classes are not as “Core” as LitHum is, they are often taught with more flexibility: my section of AHUM 1399 worked us backward through time, from a postcolonial Sudanese novel to the Arabian Nights and the Qur’an. Nor are even the “classic” texts necessarily stuffy and pretentious – the Zhuangzhi and Japanese recluse literature speak with an iconoclasm and an urgency unmatched by many modern writers. And to be able to contrast the Odyssey with the Ramayana or the Tale of Kieu opens up all sorts of questions about the role of nature of epic, and what it means to have a heroine rather than a hero.
I recommend these classes to all my friends, even upperclassmen, but I pitch them to first-years with particular insistence because they are less likely to know about them, and because, paired with LitHum, these classes can do wonders toward setting the right tone for one’s journey at Columbia. It is true that even taking these classes is only the smallest of introductions to the vast body of world literature – but my hope is that students will take that not as a warning, but as an invitation, and will set out to see where all these rivers lead.