Cultural Memory, Race, and the Secondary English Canon

• In Event: Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual iPresentation Only: Division B - Section 2: Exploring Past, Present, and Future Curricular Questions Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Current conflicts over how race and racism should be taught in U.S. schools are intensifying. These conflicts represent struggles over national identity. This paper examines the secondary literary canon’s role in these struggles by examining how teachers have taught the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, from its 1960 publication to the present. Drawing on cultural memory studies, our analysis of English Journal articles from 1960 to 2024, reveals the pervasiveness of a race evasiveness narrative, the persistence of a prejudice reduction narrative, and the emergence in the 2010s, of a critical narrative. As they reflect shifts in educational scholarship and events in U.S. society, the narratives construct and contest competing visions of the nation’s past and present identity.

Authors

• Dorothea M. Anagnostopoulos, University of Connecticut

• Austin Jerrod Unowitz, University of Connecticut