High Culture And The Western Canon: Has The Fightback Begun? LSE Literary Festival Debate

The LSE European Institute invites you to a literary debate with Jonty Claypole (Head of Arts at the BBC), Maya Jaggi (cultural journalist), Frederic Raphael (novelist) and Sarah Churchwell (Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at UEA).

With the BBC having announced a remake of Kenneth Clark's TV series Civilisation, and Melvyn Bragg’s intellectual cornucopia on Radio 4, In Our Time, now in its 17th year, we will be asking whether the mission of Lord Reith 'to educate, inform and entertain' is alive and well. Can Matthew Arnold, TS Eliot and FR Leavis sleep well in their graves? Has the era of dumbing down to 'widen access' run its course? Why shouldn't ALL schoolchildren be asked to grapple with the 'difficult' texts, rich canvases or musical scores of our western inheritance? Why shouldn't everyone have the chance to join the 'elite'?

This event is part of LSE's Literary Festival 2015.