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> Passing references to Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment, and even my unit about The Odyssey, confine literary merit to a very small, very old, very white, and very male box.

Yikes! Homer and Dostoevsky were both (presumably) white men so they obviously have the exact same experiences. Diversity is more than skin color or genitalia- what a shallow take.

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We have no reliable information about the identity of Homer. All we have are a variety of legends. But there are some decent arguments for thinking that Homer might have been a woman. We just don't know.

They were both people of relative privilege within their own societies (in Dostoevsky’s case, at least in his youth). I have a strong feeling the author isn’t arguing any sort of racial or gendered essentialism - there is merit in acknowledging that media produced by those of privileged classes may carry certain attitudes or opinions that don’t necessarily speak effectively to different audiences.

No, this is just plain and simple racism and sexism on the author's part.

This seems a gross misreading of the authors intent.

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