Cultural Capital - by John Guillory (Paperback)

About the Book

"John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over "multiculturalism" and the current "crisis of the humanities." Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of "cultural capital" in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writting."--

Book Synopsis

John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over "multiculturalism" and the current "crisis of the humanities." Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of "cultural capital" in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing.

Review Quotes

"Guillory's dismantling. . . .feels decisive in retrospect, but the real reason to read this 1993 book is the sheer quality of thinking about many debates (at that time known as the 'culture wars' and the 'canon debate') that are even more important today, in a collapsing world where we need to propose different ways of life rather than continue the demolition."-- "Mousse Magazine"