Article in Discourse. Disrupting intertextual power networks: challenging literature in schools

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Colleagues and I have a new article out in Discourse. Here’s the abstract: This paper thinks with the concept of intertextuality to consider themultiple intersecting power structures inside and outside of literaryeducation in secondary schools that continue to dominate textselection policies and teaching practices. We draw on our researchwith in-service teachers to reconsider how intertextual networkscirculate on multiple levels: textual, social, cultural, andinstitutional. Although the concept of intertextuality has beenactivated as an alternative to rarified conceptualisations of literaryheritage, as we unpack in this paper, intertextuality oftendistributes, reinforces, and perpetuates canonical power structuressuch as institutional whiteness, and Euro western values insecondary school subjects that feature literary studies. Rather thanabandoning intertextuality, we attempt to tease out how itoperates in various registers in schooling and we suggest howcritically engaging with the concept might provide a way forwardfor English study in the twenty-first century.