Each time the college instructor opens a new edition of an anthology of world literature or American literature, she discovers more pages from those like Milton and Dante cut. To take their place are such “texts” as Native American rain dances and scalp dances. To teach such material from the now fashionable “oral tradition” presents a challenge to the professor, though. For as the instructor manuals state, such chants are performance-dependent. She faces the task of doing justice to a chant that celebrates ripping the scalp off an enemy. Now, indeed, the enemy, Even one who thought himself a man,...
