Canon formation selects and dominates by excluding texts that genuinely belong to a period

Evidence

The axiomatic fact about any canon formation, even when it initially takes shape as a counter-canon, is that when a period is defined and homogenized, or the desired literary typology is constructed, the canonizing agency selects certain kinds of authors, texts, styles, and criteria of classification and judgement, privileging them over others which may also belong in the same period, arising out of the same space of production, but which manifestly fall outside the principles of inclusion enunciated by that selfsame agency; in other words, a certain kind of dominance is asserted and fought for, and is in turn defined as the essential and the dominant. … In turn, the triumph of modernism is indicated today precisely in the fact that realist texts produced during that same period and in the same Euro-American spaces now find no significant place in the literary curricula and critical discourses pertaining to that period and place, regardless of the number, the worth or the social influence of such texts in their own time. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 209

Categorization

• SHARE: For someone teaching literary canons or curricula design - a crisp statement that canonization is inherently an act of dominance/exclusion, not just inclusion.
• XREF: connects to: Canon formation works by foreclosing certain questions while foregrounding others. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 484; Colonial periodization privileged one textual canon per religious period — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1165; Canon formation works by excluding certain questions from being asked

Related

• Canon formation works by excluding certain questions from being asked (similarity 0.86)
• Canon formation works by foreclosing certain questions while foregrounding others. (similarity 0.83)
• Canonization works by foreclosing certain kinds of questions (similarity 0.82)
• Canon formation operates through selective admission, not outright exclusion (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial periodization privileged one textual canon per religious period (similarity 0.81)
• Canons do not exist until they are fabricated (similarity 0.80)
• Even counter-canons assert dominance and define their own selections as the essential (similarity 0.79)
• Canonizing radical texts neutralizes their challenge to tradition (similarity 0.79)