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The Black feminist novelist Toni Morrison once wrote that ¿it only seems that the canon of American literature is `naturally' or `inevitably' `white.' In fact it is studiously so. The impact of this revelation may feel alien to many students of literature today, for whom 'the canon' is little more than a euphemism for the 'Dead White Men' preserved in it, but for Morrison and the generation of intellectuals she belonged to, that recognition was the great cultural struggle of their era. This struggle, now remembered as the 'Canon Wars,' upset every convention of traditional literary scholarship, and set the terms for literary critical practice to this day. This course introduces students to key methods and stakes in 21st century literary research (to be practiced in their own development of a research project) through the Canon Wars and their legacies. Standing loosely in for `canon,' `war,' and `legacy,' we will read three novels together: Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and Mat Johnson's Pym. Through these novels, students will practice literary criticism and learn about its history, focusing on how the debates of the late 20th century created a framework for centering Blackness in the study of American culture, and cleared space for the emergent field of African American/Black Studies.nNote: This Writing-Intensive Seminar in English (WISE) course fulfills WIM for English majors. Non-majors are welcome, space permitting. Enrollment is by permission (contact vbeebe@stanford.edu). For more information go to https://english.stanford.edu/writing-intensive-seminars-english-wise.