Columbia University is distinctive for continuing to teach the Western canon to its students. The Core Curriculum, commonly referred to as “the Core,” is compulsoryfor all Columbia undergraduates; it includes mandatory courses in Western music, philosophy, literature, and art. Over the years, however, the Core has been heavily criticized, primarily by a small number of radical student activists who denounce what is in their view a racist curriculum unduly dominated by the writings of “dead white males.”
Every few months, some race-related incident in the news compels Columbia's administrators to come out and justify their pedagogical approach to the canon. Self-conscious and apologetic in tone, the arguments they offer tend to be unconvincing.
A pair of essays published in Columbia's student newspaper last December demonstrate the cognitive dissonance that characterizes the Columbia establishment's defense of its own curriculum. One was written by Joanna Stalnaker, chair of the Western literature course (titled “Literature Humanities”); the other by Emmanuelle Saada, chair of the Western philosophy course (titled “Contemporary Civilization”). In their pieces, the professors set out to explain the purposes of their respective courses.
Stalnaker opens her case on unobjectionable grounds. She claims that there is value to having all undergraduates read the same body of texts. Given that the cultural background of the student body is diverse, the classroom experience that results when everybody engages the same books while bringing to bear their different cultural experiences will be intellectually nourishing and exciting. This is a fair enough position, but it does not necessarily provide a reason to read the Western canon. If the Core exists only so as to allow undergraduates to read the same texts, then those texts might as well be a diverse collection of the world's great cultural traditions. Privileging the Western tradition, as the Core currently does, would remain unjustified.
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