Notes on Cornel West's "Black Critics and the Pitfalls of Canon Formation":

To begin, I'll list the things West seems particularly interested in. The first, naturally, is canon formation. West's essay is, on the surface, a description of how a new African American canon should be produced. He details the qualifications that pieces should have, as well as lamenting the ways in which AA literature has been mislabled and misunderstood, particularly by black critics. Second, he is concerned with what he terms a "crisis in the humanities": the fall of the "dominant" culture and its effect on the subcultures under it, particularly AA. West believes that this crisis is vital to the future of literature and the study of literature. Third, he is promoting what he terms "opposition cultural criticism." In essence, he believes that history is punctuated by conflicts, and that the canon shoud reflect those punctuations.

I have oversimplified. I concede this before beginning to truly speak about the essay, with the added intention of fleshing out both his ideas and my own as I move along. My intention in the introduction above was to ground anyone unfamiliar with the essay in the terms and concepts most central to the arguments that will follow. No claim is made that I am "summarizing" or "crystalizing" his essay above. I am not. I am telling you what you need to have in your mind to read the essay and get the most from it.

This article is surprisingly clear while at the same time being quite dense, and is interesting as well as challenging. Despite his stated intention of detailing pitfalls of canon formation, I believe that West is, in actuality, providing a brief primer for cultural critics. His choice is to "focus not on the kinds of texts to choose for an enlargement of the old canon or the making of a new one but rather on a historical reading of the present-day crisis of American civilization," and by the choice he moves away from dealing with canons and into dealing with culture. He is interested in seeing "more attention paid to the prevailing historical interpretations of the cultural crisis." Finally, he states that "the appropriate role and function of opposition cultural critics ... [is] threefold. First, we must no longer be literary critics who presume that our cultivated gaze on literary objects - the reified objects of our compartmentalized and professionalized disciplines - yields solely or principally judgments about the literary properties of these objects. [..] Second, as cultural critics attuned to political conflict and strugge inscribed within the rhetorical enactments of texts, we should relate such conflict and strugge to larger institutional and structural battles occurring in and across societies, cultures, and economies. [..] Finally, cultural critics should promote types of canon formation that serve as strategic weapons in the contemporary battle over how best to respond to the current crisis in one's society and culture."

Rather a large chunk of quotations, of course, but necessary if I'm to assume you haven't got a copy of the article. There are a ton of terms and phrases in here with resonance in the theory community, particularly those sounding the most obscure (naturally). The compartmentalization he references above refers to the silent barriers between periods and genres within the discipline, outside of which we very rarely look. "reified" objects are those to which special status has been ascribed, usually by members of the "academic elite," which is quite similar to presence in the canon.

Those things clarified, I think I have to take apart a flaw in his reasoning. If, for instance, we generate a canon of literary works that "serve as strategic weapons," we are creating a strong theme of both dissent and isolation. More importantly, if every text in a subculture's canon has been selected because of its depiction of a conflict between that subculture and a "dominant" one, what internal relevance is there in this canon? It seems to me that the canon would be more focused on the "dominant" culture than it would be on the subculture.

I believe that West has generalized a universal rule from a central theme of one particular subculture. It is true that central to identification as an African American is a sense of contestation and struggle against the "dominant" culture, but that is not the only central theme of AA literature. Ignoring the rest and focusing so solely on one theme in AA literature would leave out important works. "Sonny's Blues" is, I feel, an excellent example of what should be included in a canon of AA literature. But it would not (and West states this) be included in the canon he creates. The musicality that produced blues, rock, funk, jazz, and a host of other musical movements is as important to that subculture as the conflict against dominance, and is much more - how can I say it? - truly part of that subculture. Internal. Unmixed with another culture.

That's my two cents, then. West sets out some great ideas that are important to a study of subcultures and their relationship to a "dominant" culture, but he fails to understand that conflict is not the only important part of being a member of a subculture. In a way, he feels bitter - not jaded, but wounded deeply by the conflict he wishes to have exposed. I understand that, and appreciate it, but I think that pain is not all there is to that subculture. There is also unmistakable beauty and sophistication, which deserve to be shared and cherished as much if not more than that pain.