/lit/ - Literature

>non-white, and/or non-men
>good
Impossible, your professor is a retard; stick to he canon, it's the only way to be patrician.

>>5760715
But I wouldn't want you to miss out on 'great' literature.

Try:

Bob Kaufman
Virginia Woolf
Tao Lin
Zadie Smith (all three!)
Ralph Ellison
Jane Austen

50 Cent has a book out, i guess you could try that or something

>>5760729
Virginia Woolf is basically canon, isn't she? I often hear her mentioned along with Joyce and Beckett.

>My professor told me that if I only read the canon, I'll just be reading dead white men
this is already a misrepresentation of the canon

disregard everything that person said

>>5760715
http://www.amazon.com/Deeper-Love-Inside-Porsche-Santiaga/dp/1439165319/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=08RRQHSADPK60GA1KB30


Also your professor was lying. There is very little good literature done in every period of time so most of it belongs to dead authors.

Why would you disregard a bunch of great literature based purely on the authors' race?

>>5760715
Women:
Rachel Kushner
Tony Morrison
Amy Hempel
Lydia Davis
Marguerite Duras

Japanese Authors:
Mishima
Dazai
Tanizaki
Akutagawa
Kawabata
Soseki

Chinese:
Mo Yan
Ha-Jin

Korean:
Jang Jung

Latin America:
Bolano
Marquez
Borges
Fuentes
Pessoa

But just remember what Bloom always says: the novel is a european art form, and as such is eminently european.

>>5760762
>no Ralph Ellison

>>5760752
She said it would make me more well-rounded and tolerant to veer off the path of the canon.

>>5760769
Fuck that bitch, tell her and her shitty "tolerance" to fuck off.

>>5760715
The converse of this is that your scope is even more limited by only reading contemporary literature.

>>5760774
Nah I probably won't.

It's so funny to me telling people to expand their horizons before they've even scratched the surface of the canon.

>>5760779
Then get the fuck off of my board, /lit/ isn't for plebs.

noviolet bulawayo

>>5760783
>my board
I didn't know your name was moot.

>>5760762
it's toni morrison not tony

>>5760792
No, seriously; why would you read "literature" of lesser quality because the author is white, or a man? -- this is some true intolerance right there. The good old double standard of leftist relativism.

>>5760762
>Rachel Kushner

There was something I really disliked about The Flamethrowers, but I can't remember what.

>>5760762
>Latin America
>Pessoa

>>5760715
>I'll just be reading dead white men
>I will miss a lot of good literature

B does not follow from A

>>5760715
How about you just read good books and not care about who wrote them? Your professor is an idiot.

>>5760738
According to some people, yeah. I was iffy on including her too but OP wasn't specifically looking for 'non-canonical' authors but non-'deadwhitemen.'

there is lots of good non-cannon stuff, but
>hurr ddeb wtye mayn
is not a good argument for it.

>>5760729
>>5760768
Ralph Ellison is absolute shit. Richard Wright is a far better recommendation.

>>5760861
Ralph Ellison is on par with the greatest writers of the 20th Century.

>>5760811
Why are you telling me this?
I was not for or against anything in this thread, I just looked on the first page and saw that saying that it's his board. So I called him out on it.

Also
> why would you read "literature" of lesser quality because the author is white, or a man
Because /pol/ has invaded this board, they found a way to say their racist and "supremacist" vile without getting banned.
They have so much pent up angst, I guess killing hundreds of thousands of natives and stealing their land, then telling other people that go to America to "go back where you came from" takes it toll.

>>5760861
I don't like Ellison either but, unlike truly awful only-read-because-they-black writers like Morrison or Hughes, I saw some merit and he has more fans here, so I figured he was worth the recommendation regardless. I haven't read Wright, though, so thanks.

>>5760871
>Because /pol/ has invaded this board
No we haven't.

hint: she was telling thou that thoust is too stupid to understand the complexities 92+2=5) of le cannon
City of OP: Population: BTFO

>>5760871
>Because /pol/ has invaded this board
No they haven't.

OP here please remain clam guys

>>5760882
fuck off

>>5760871
>They have so much pent up angst, I guess killing hundreds of thousands of natives and stealing their land
What's wrong with that? Sounds like human culture to me. The stuff author make books out of. Obviously if everyone stayed where they were we wouldn't have much to talk about in the end, or would we?

>>5760871
Are you for real you fucking ratchet ass thot?

If non-canonical authors are so great, why aren't they in the canon?

>>5760876
>>5760880
lol

>>5760871
Land belongs to no one and is kept by force. There is no natural right and no one deserves anything.

>>5760898
autism

>mfw there are people who read for political and social justice rather than for aesthetic pleasure

>>5760715
He's kind of right though, there are plenty of amazing works that aren't within the canon.

>>5760914
It's a gurl, and I guess I should have called her my instructor since she doesn't have her PhD yet

Ursula LeGuin writes "genre fiction" but it's more literary than a lot of "literary fiction" so I would suggest reading her work. Especially The Dispossessed.

>>5760898
>>5760901
let's turn /lit/ into hardcore Georgists instead of Marxists

>>5760930
Why not hardcore left-anarchists?

>>5760910
>There are people who do not read for political and social justice

>>5760930
That's not what I was saying. I was saying that no one had rights; the natives had no right over the land below their feet, nor do America has more now; whoever is the most powerful gets to control the land and there's nothing wrong about it.

>"B-but, my dad and his dad and his dad's dad lived here before"

>I would gladly fight them for their land, were they still alive

>>5760940
So edgy.

>>5760920
No wonder why she's so fucking retarded

>>5761059
Is it really that retarded?

>>5761072
Yes

>>5761078
What's so retarded? what's wrong with reading widely?

>>5760940
What are you talking about, 'no one has rights!' just because you can violate someone's right doesn't mean you're right to do so, imbecile.

>>5761082
She's discriminating against the canon for "multiculturalism".

>>5761085
read some rousseau, bitch nig

>>5760762
>Tony Morrison

>>5761092
I've read Discourse on Inequality.

>>5760715
Your professor represents a trend in humanities departments that began sometime during the latter half of the last decade, where, instead of focusing on the quality of literature, they focus on political factors, which leads them to suggest substandard works in the name of egalitarianism. What a shame there aren't more Harold Blooms and Norman Frumans in the world.

>>5761082
Uplifting a novel based on the race or heritage of the author instead of on the novel's literary achievement is ridiculous.

>>5760762
>the novel is a european art form, and as such is eminently european

I would agree for the most part, but what about the Tale of Genji ?

>>5761108
Except you can't really gauge a novel's "literary achievement" (however you assess it) without reading it, while you can know the race or gender of the author.

I don't agree with the "don't read too many dead european white men" mentality, but wanting to read female or recent or Asian authors out of curiosity is not inherently more stupid than wanting to read foreign or past authors out of curiosity.

>>5761085
rights are a moral phenomenon and therefore have no reality outside of human thought, my bruh

>>5761172
We live and exist in human thought, it's human though that dissects and demarcates our monist reality.

Junot Diaz
Chang Rae Lee
Melinda Moustakis

are some recent good writers i've read

Why should living black woman literature be any better? Instead of categorizing and generalizing, why not judge a work on its own merits?

Jose Saramago

>>5760715
avoiding books just because the author is a white man?

that sounds racist and sexist.

>>5761265
you sound retarded m8

>>5761194
okay..? but the thing is what you regard as a moral value (a right of a given persons to a tract of land say) could not reasonably be expected to be real by every one. some might say that all land belongs to the king of guilder or that no land is to be owned at all. however if we had a fist sized stone, we could pass that stone from me to you to every one and although some might say 'this stone is smooth' or 'this stone is rough' as their perspective would surely vary most every one (excluding the deficient) would agree to that stone's reality. in fact if some one were to say "there is not a stone here in my hand" it would be some criteria for thinking they are not sane.

additionally we could use that stone to do things and make predictions about what would happen to it. what happens when we throw it? if we hit a guy with it, i bet it would hurt him. what possible predictive quality do your rights have? all it takes is a swift knock to the throat to remove some one's 'right to speak freely.' but i bet that stone would sail up and fall every time.

rights are great social constructions for us to establish basic expectations about civil society but they are only ideas. and ideas are fake and gay.

>>5761265
>#rekt'd
man emily got told fucking one sided femmist

>>5760762
>>5760799
What should I read by Toni Morrison?

>>5761172
Without human empathy, there is no human society. I wonder if you'd stick to your viewpoint when someone robs you at gunpoint, contending that he has a right to your valuables due to his greater force.

>>5762109
>Without human empathy, there is no human society. I wonder if you'd stick to your viewpoint when someone robs you at gunpoint, contending that he has a right to your valuables due to his greater force.
This is why we create social structures and mutually-beneficial contracts that help conserve and secure more value from those who would do us harm. Just because our forefathers have created a powerful and secure society that incentivizes a certain degree of cooperation does not mean that the universe is any less indifferent than it was when the man-with-the-biggest-stick ruled the tribe.

>>5762145
The universe being indifferent has nothing to do with anything. If you want to live in a society, than you must acknowledge the existence of rights.

>>5762159
>The universe being indifferent has nothing to do with anything. If you want to live in a society, than you must acknowledge the existence of rights.
The laws of the universe are the only true arbiters of what can and cannot be done. Rights are an imaginative construct created by humans to create a common thread between them(ie a society). These rights in most cases vary. The rights of someone under American constitutionalism for example are very different from the rights an individual has under Saudi Arabia's Sharia law. There is no objective "right" and "wrong", there's only self-interest and idealism.

>>5760723
>>5760843

>>5760769

>She

>>5762565
?

>>5760715
Read the canons of other cultural traditions.

Especially the Chinese

if you don't read the canon you will miss more and better literature

you should be careful of who compiled the canon though, they may be biased like bloom is, so you better find yourself who are the most popular writers of a certain period/culture and read them

>>5760715
I think your professor is just sore about losing his foreskin all those years ago.

your professor is a conman, be glad you are not studying medicine

>>5760861
>Ralph Ellison is absolute shit

How? If he had written more than just the one novel he might have been one of my favorite writers. Invisible Man is fucking excellent

>>5760729
>Tao Lin

Besides that, good list.

>>5760861
I think you've made a mistake, Ralph is the shit m80

edgy autist cringeworthy fedora, ur armgumint is invalddid

>>5760715
If you only read dead white men you'd read a shitload of very good books

>>5760871
>>5760898
>>5760940
>>5761085
>>5761194
>>5761301
>>5762109
>>5762145
>>5762181
Haha, wow. All these people arguing about a philosphical, political, and social debate that has been solved for centuries.
Bravo, /lit/. Go back to your stupid little circle-jerks about Pynchon, Zizek, Egoists, and the Greeks. You all have some serious learning to do before you even think of holding an "intelligent" discussion.

>>5761085
Jesus Christ you're stupid

>>5760738
Female authors and authors of color are ignored as part of the canon when the criticism of the canon for consisting of "dead-white men" necessitates it.

>>5762823

that criticism is silly
they should decide whether they want to judge books by quality or by skin color/gender of the author, they claim the first while actually promote the second, the reversed bias

>>5760715
What does it matter what the author looks like?

>>5762797
>getting all your opinions from other people rather than thinking for yourself
That's 4chan I guess.

>>5760861

Richard Wright is amazing.

Black Boy and Native Son are really good reads, even if they devolve into communist wankery for the last sixty or so pages.

>>5762582
This anon speaks the truth, you shouldn't limit yourself to only the Western Canon once you're finished with it, but there's nothing wrong with limiting, and I say that weakest sense, yourself to canons only as their sizes are so great that it could take you a lifetime to get through most of them (not strictly reading but analyzing and learning the reason why they were incorporated into that specific canon).

>>5762601
>they may be biased like bloom is
All of them are biased, but at least Bloom is knowledgeable on what is good, so his list is the best.
>>5762887
There is no true originality.

>>5760762
don't know if it's been said but

>pessoa
>Latin american

>>5762987
i won't forgive him yesenin ><

/pol/ always told me this was a leftist circle-jerk board. Hmm.

>>5764009
>believing /pol/
do you know how many people from /pol/ are here? the only reason we're not constantly besieged is because /lit/ mods are SJW and delete stuff they don't like. which includes many marxism threads btw.

Dead white men have written some excellent stuff. Not since they've been dead, obviously, but being dead and white doesn't mean your books are bad.

ONLY WHITE MEN HAVE TASTE.