As is periodically the case in the SFF community, we’re once more in the midst of a conversation about “the classics.” If you’re reading this now, it doesn’t actually matter that I wrote this in 2022; this conversation happens so often that the context above could apply in any given year going back decades, albeit more frequently today than before social media. The conversation typically features the following claims: You DON’T need to read “the classics” for reasons (there are many) You DO need to read “the classics” for reasons (there are many) There are no “classics” for reasons (there are many) I’m not going to list the various reasons offered for all of these. Instead, I’ll note that we usually see two common claims for the first two: 1) that you don’t need to read them because they do not represent where genre is now; and 2) that you do need to read them because they’re necessary to understand how we got where we are now. These are incredibly reductive versions of those common arguments, and both are technically correct but typically uttered in the wrong context. In my view, the questions of “the classics” is really only relevant in an strictly educational framework. This framework may include formal education such as that found at a university or include informal education such as that of a long-tail critic (i.e., someone who is invested in literary criticism of genre). It is not universal (there being value in teaching a variety of works when trying to support a reading culture). Outside of that educational framework, I think these questions collapse. A writer, for example, really has no need to read “the classics” to write work appropriate for now, except if such work is meant to respond to, borrow from, or be interpreted through/with those older works. Knowing works from the last twenty years within a specific genre is likely sufficient in almost all situations. A casual reader doesn’t need to know those works either, as their interactions with contemporary works may be valid within a contemporary context alone. And so on and so forth… Within that educational framework, however, “the classics” hold a particular allure, in large part because our efforts to teach and understand the history of genre requires us to know where the genre *was* so we can understand where it is *now* (or, at least, in a given post-time). Whether we need to read all of those works may depend on what we are trying to understand and the particular needs of a given project. A project on American space opera from the 1950s, for example, would be bound to a strong, particular knowledge of the works of that period. However, even this project wouldn’t require intimate knowledge of all of the works in that category; rather, you’d need to have a good grasp of several texts largely deemed “important.” If we extend this project out to something much larger in scope, such as a history of genre or teaching a course on genre as a whole, then we can see where the knowledge of works across a wide range of times becomes essential (even if we acknowledge that one does not need to read all of those “classic” works). But that word “important” is also one worth exploring. When we sit down to construct something within that educational framework, we’re often attempting to identify those works deemed “important” (or, at least, “important in a certain context”). If we include works that aren’t generally recognized as “important,” those works are still understood dialogically (i.e., that these works are in a conversation, albeit one we’re often superimposing onto those works). In general literary studies, this is usually an easy task; there are numerous texts defining the “canon” of literature, and the history of literary study is so substantial that identifying canonical texts usually doesn’t take much effort because those texts are rooted in our educational structures from the ground up; any work we include which is not part of “the canon,” thus, enters a conversation with the works most people accept (or recognize) as “the canon.” SF, however, does not have a canon of texts. It never has. It probably never will. As academic tools, canons have arrived through a process of formal and discursive (arriving through conversation and dialogue and writing) practice in which works are argued for, debated, presented through formal research, used as comparative models, and used as representative examples in formal education. This process need not be objective nor the result of objective measurements, though such measurements have been used; rather, they exist as a conversation, sometimes with “the nation,” about which works matter and why they matter. In traditional literary circles (i.e., non-genre), these have arrived in two primary forces: the cultural forces of education (what works young people and educated people must know for a variety of reasons) and academic production (books about the great books). There’s a reason we can say things like “the Western Canon” (thanks, Harold Bloom…) or the “Great Books” (there are entire series dedicated to this concept, as in the case of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World series from 1952): we have a language for talking about these things as a result of over a century of discussion about what constitutes the canon (or, at least, what constitutes the Books That Matter). The curious case of Herman Melville is worth noting here as a prime example of this canon culture. Melville made waves with his first major works, Typee and Omoo, both notable for content that was, for the time, rather titillating. However, the work for which he is most famous today, Moby Dick, effectively marked the decline of his career. He was brutally rejected by the same (mostly New York) critics who had hailed his earlier work,1 and by his death in 1891, Melville had largely faded from literary memory. He might have stayed that way except for the efforts of Raymond … Continue reading Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist
Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist
As is periodically the case in the SFF community, we’re once more in the midst of a conversation about “the classics.” If you’re reading this now, it doesn’t actually matter that I wrote this in 2022; this conversation happens so often that the context above could apply in any given year going back decades, albeit more frequently today than before social media. The conversation typically features the following claims: You DON’T need to read “the classics” for reasons (there are many) You DO need to read “the classics” for reasons (there are many) There are no “classics” for reasons (there are many) I’m not going to list the various reasons offered for all of these. Instead, I’ll note that we usually see two common claims for the first two: 1) that you don’t need to read them because they do not represent where genre is now; and 2) that you do need to read them because they’re necessary to understand how we got where we are now. These are incredibly reductive versions of those common arguments, and both are technically correct but typically uttered in the wrong context. In my view, the questions of “the classics” is really only relevant in an strictly educational framework. This framework may include formal education such as that found at a university or include informal education such as that of a long-tail critic (i.e., someone who is invested in literary criticism of genre). It is not universal (there being value in teaching a variety of works when trying to support a reading culture). Outside of that educational framework, I think these questions collapse. A writer, for example, really has no need to read “the classics” to write work appropriate for now, except if such work is meant to respond to, borrow from, or be interpreted through/with those older works. Knowing works from the last twenty years within a specific genre is likely sufficient in almost all situations. A casual reader doesn’t need to know those works either, as their interactions with contemporary works may be valid within a contemporary context alone. And so on and so forth… Within that educational framework, however, “the classics” hold a particular allure, in large part because our efforts to teach and understand the history of genre requires us to know where the genre *was* so we can understand where it is *now* (or, at least, in a given post-time). Whether we need to read all of those works may depend on what we are trying to understand and the particular needs of a given project. A project on American space opera from the 1950s, for example, would be bound to a strong, particular knowledge of the works of that period. However, even this project wouldn’t require intimate knowledge of all of the works in that category; rather, you’d need to have a good grasp of several texts largely deemed “important.” If we extend this project out to something much larger in scope, such as a history of genre or teaching a course on genre as a whole, then we can see where the knowledge of works across a wide range of times becomes essential (even if we acknowledge that one does not need to read all of those “classic” works). But that word “important” is also one worth exploring. When we sit down to construct something within that educational framework, we’re often attempting to identify those works deemed “important” (or, at least, “important in a certain context”). If we include works that aren’t generally recognized as “important,” those works are still understood dialogically (i.e., that these works are in a conversation, albeit one we’re often superimposing onto those works). In general literary studies, this is usually an easy task; there are numerous texts defining the “canon” of literature, and the history of literary study is so substantial that identifying canonical texts usually doesn’t take much effort because those texts are rooted in our educational structures from the ground up; any work we include which is not part of “the canon,” thus, enters a conversation with the works most people accept (or recognize) as “the canon.” SF, however, does not have a canon of texts. It never has. It probably never will. As academic tools, canons have arrived through a process of formal and discursive (arriving through conversation and dialogue and writing) practice in which works are argued for, debated, presented through formal research, used as comparative models, and used as representative examples in formal education. This process need not be objective nor the result of objective measurements, though such measurements have been used; rather, they exist as a conversation, sometimes with “the nation,” about which works matter and why they matter. In traditional literary circles (i.e., non-genre), these have arrived in two primary forces: the cultural forces of education (what works young people and educated people must know for a variety of reasons) and academic production (books about the great books). There’s a reason we can say things like “the Western Canon” (thanks, Harold Bloom…) or the “Great Books” (there are entire series dedicated to this concept, as in the case of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World series from 1952): we have a language for talking about these things as a result of over a century of discussion about what constitutes the canon (or, at least, what constitutes the Books That Matter). The curious case of Herman Melville is worth noting here as a prime example of this canon culture. Melville made waves with his first major works, Typee and Omoo, both notable for content that was, for the time, rather titillating. However, the work for which he is most famous today, Moby Dick, effectively marked the decline of his career. He was brutally rejected by the same (mostly New York) critics who had hailed his earlier work,1 and by his death in 1891, Melville had largely faded from literary memory. He might have stayed that way except for the efforts of Raymond … Continue reading Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist