Anthony says: "Some sub-categories aren't really the best places for expansion, such as Renaissance artists and pre-20th century white males who wrote literature in the English language." I would disagree on this count, as I think there is no shortage of worthwhile ground yet to be covered in pre-1900 British literature. In fact, I would argue that the current division of British and American lit in packets (in most tournaments, the two are equal) is skewed way in the direction of American lit, as compared to the curriculum of the typical English major. For example, these are the courses required of an English major at Boston University: EN220: An introductory class for English majors. No set curriculum, but professor usually covers a range of mostly-British literature from the 16th to 20th centuries. HU221: The foundations of the English literary tradition. Homer; Greek drama; Vergil; the Divine Comedy. EN222 and EN223: Two classes systematically covering English literature from "Beowulf" to the early 20th century. And also: One class on a period of time in British literature. One class on a specific British author. One class on American literature. So, of the seven required classes, four are specifically British; one is almost entirely British; one is not British or American at all; one is American. How does that work out to equal numbers? Is someone seriously arguing that the American literary tradition is equal to the British one? That the two are equal now, maybe... but that's a very recent development. And even if the two were always equal, the simple fact that England has been hanging around several hundred years longer than America would be enough to tip the scales in England's favor. Now, where the balance should be struck between English-language literature and literature in other languages, let alone the thorny problem of non-Western literature, is a more complex debate which I will leave for another time. But I do not "get" the preponderance of American literature in distributions. I mean, there was someone talking about writing an entire bonus about Barbara Kingsolver, an author of no distinction. I say that before we are to fairly let Kingsolver into a literature distribution, there are dozens if not hundreds of unasked authors we should let in... and that we should not abide by biased standards in doing so, biased by era, by gender, or by nationality. Critical study does not support the addition of Kingsolver or of this massive amount of modern and American literature; college curricula do not support it; nothing supports it. If we are to expand the "canon", we should do so in favor of good authors who are studied, not in favor of what is recent or trendy or in favor of popular fiction; we should definitely not write another James Fenimore Cooper question in a misguided effort to fill out an unbalanced distribution, nor should we fly to other ills that we know not of and relevant scholars care not about. Just my opinion, of course. I don't mean to offend anyone. And to be honest, I have no major problems with quiz bowl as it is. (Well, except lit questions on lightweights.)
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