Among the intellectual debates of the last forty years, the critique of cultural canons has attracted the highest share of public attention, stirring academic, educational, and media controversies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Postmodernism, feminism, postcolonialism, and multiculturalism have refashioned the attitudes of educators and audiences towards cultural memory, opening up curricula to subjects and traditions previously excluded from the humanities. Predictably, these new critical practices have triggered heated responses from commentators fearing that culture and education...