Despite the apparent poststructuralist consensus that the question of canon has been effectively dealt with by (critical) theory, which presumably dispelled the oppressive mysticism of the quasi-religious aura of the canonical classics, the less visible, concealed or repressed question of canonicity haunts contemporary critical theory, especially as it transforms itself into an academic institution replete with reading lists, curricula, readers, and degree-granting authority. Canon formations, from the Biblical canon to the early modern canons of national literature to the recent debate about the American literary canon, have never been lucid in their presentation of the grounds and criteria of selection or closure. Nor is it any different in the case of the canon of critical theory, as one finds in examining the table of contents of the literary-critical theory readers or glossary guidebooks most frequently used in university classrooms. Or rather, what is different about this new dominant canon of academic discourse from the older canon of literary classics si the accelerated pace of addiction and deletion of authorial names, which turns the former into a ghastly pseudo-canon that lacks the latter's strength of constancy, while gaining little from the ostensible porousness of the remembered, cherished, and taught list of mandatory texts of (critical) theory.
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