Week 1 | Questions of Canon

Mantoan et. al, suggest that the very nature of the "Canon" with a concerted effort to establish a point of permeance in a changing landscape. “Obsessed with this fraught past, we speak of new work as if it were something novel, but the canon is composed of new works grown old. Valuing longevity over innovation, we fail to recognize that one thing that made those works great was their departure from the past (4)”. Michele Foucault  (1969) suggests similarly in introduction of "Archelogy of Knowledge" that scholars and thinkers of his time wants to have unified period of time, but fails to consider how these periods starts and stops, and how other moments can easily fracture that idyllic whole. Likewise, Gulliroy (1992) contends with how establishing what is a practice and isn't reflects similarly to how the Christian religion chose was it is and isn't and grounds of orthodoxy and control. 

With these tests, I'm reminded of the challenge that major religions posed before the establishment as a world religion. Christianity started as a challenge to the ruling elites in Jerusalem, Buddhism was a secular challenge towards caste thinking and cemented way of life. Even the doctrines themselves posed challenges to the world view of the people in all these holy texts, and to contemporary practitioners today. Does the "Canon" of theatre employ pieces that challenged in its heyday but now loses its fangs as its seen as being "the norm"? Are these texts "great" because they did their time in the ring and now they don't need to?

Also Gulluroy notes a delineation of critics and artist. Would the disparity of the contemporary critic/artist reflect this difference now versus how we might have approach a new canon in the late 20th century? Would it be more productive to see this as acrtical pedegocial problem? IF so, then it implies that all texts are dideatical and are intended to teach.

But grammar also exists within systems of "canonization". This also assumes that learning is inherently tiered