The 'Culture Wars' in Academia

The Canon War of the 1980s was essentially a battle between more traditional thinkers who advocated the teaching of the classics in College curriculum, and those who felt that the works of minorities and women should have a greater presence in University literature. This was the backdrop for the publishing of Alan Bloom's controversial work "The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students". Bloom's work criticized American Universities for eliminating classic curriculum and instead replacing it with work that touched on issues they viewed as subjects of controversy in the 1960s. He felt that in eliminating Western literature in favor of topics discussing sex, race and other catalysts of social change, Universities were limiting the mind of the College student. Bloom also argued against intellectualism in America; making the claim that no real contributions had been made to American thought since the fifties. Alan Bloom's criticism of University curriculum and American intellectualism is that subject of this 2007 New York Times Article entitled "Revisiting the Canon Wars"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/college/coll16donadio-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin