A committee of the MLA and the Teagle Foundation has issued a white paper on literature and language curricula. Everyone involved in canon issues, reading lists, and other curriculum matters should read it. Conservative critics of academia should, too.

It’s a remarkable statement in that it “insists” that literature remain the center of English and foreign-language majors, that academia cultivate the slow and deliberate reading of complex works, and that masterpieces and “great” works be a focus of study. I think the committee recognizes that literary studies have faded in the higher-ed landscape, and that if the field’s leaders want to prosper, they need to return to a foundation in literary tradition centered on masterpieces (yes, they use the term “masterpieces”).

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