The renaming of literature appreciation as cultural studies marks a rethinking of what is experienced as cultural materials, going beyond reading and writing to media, popular culture, newspapers, advertising, textbooks, and advice manuals. It also marks the movement away from the study of an object to the study of criticism. (MSE)

This article proposes that a college curriculum acceptable to both multiculturalists and those who promote the Western tradition above others could offer mostly Western texts and histories in most courses while mandating some immersion in a clearly non-Western culture, on the grounds that we must study Western culture not because it is best but…