P in Uni syllabi (not P on)

[matthew cissell]

Happy festive days passed to you all - Hail Sol Invictus!

Does anyone know of a source (webpage, whateva) for cross referencing
University syllabi? I've poked around, but, ya'know, needle, haystack - to
the nth. I have come across numerous individual examples: not what I'm
lookin for.

Some time back someone posted that TP's works were listed in all tier 4 (if
I recall correctly) universities, which made me think it didn't refer to
the US uni system.

It would be interesting to see what works by Pynchon are taught and with
what frequency, and also to compare that with other writers. For example, I
think Pynchon would come out above Kesey, but how would he fare against
Roth or Barth? And how would that look if we studied syllabi from the UK?
Or Germany?

I know this isn't exactly what we've seen people discussing at the last few
Pynchon conferences (as far as digital humanities goes), but it does seem
like something that is achievable - please forgive my tech naivete/
ignorance - and relevant to the study of Mr. Pynchon's work. After all, is
not the inclusion of an author in syllabi a mark of an author's importance
in a society? Most universities require reading Shakespeare for an English
studies degree, far less require reading Marloweor Ben Johnson, unless one
is pursuing specialization in Elizabethan literature. Telemann was bigger
than Bach back in their day and Lope de Vega was feted more than poor
Cervantes, but history often grants victory over time.

Our Absent author's lack of visibility (a thing that has undergone some
change) kept him so low profile for such a long time that he simply didn't
blip very much on the cultural rader; both Roth and Barth, though nothing
like Mailor the media hog, were far more a part of the public space. Are we
seeing that shift the other way? Might we hazard the speculation that in 20
- 30 years time (or more) the works of Barth and Roth will be reduced to
one or two works in a survey course, as examples of the howling of white
men, and Pynchon in a position homologous to that of Bach or Cervantes?

So, any way to crunch and parse those Syllabi?

ciao
mc otis
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