This response to Keighren et al. (2012) challenges the distinction made between texts as ‘canonical’ or ‘classic’ to call for interrogating texts as interventions in broader disciplinary conversations, highlighting their place in mediating disagreements, challenges, contradictions, and the power relationships of intellectual and disciplinary winners and losers. This is especially important for graduate education, as a critical site where we construct the discipline’s dominant narratives and socially reproduce ourselves.
