David Gilmour's controversial remarks.

As stated by Katie J. M. Baker on Jezebel.com:

"If you're into books written by women (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA what's that) don't take University of Toronto professor David Gilmour's fiction class; he's "not interested" in teaching women authors (except Virginia Woolf, who somehow manages to entertain him). "What I teach is guys," he says. "Serious heterosexual guys." Got it.

Here's what Gilmour told Hazlitt re female writers, queer writers, and Chinese (?) writers:

I’m not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Except for Virginia Woolf. And when I tried to teach Virginia Woolf, she’s too sophisticated, even for a third-year class. Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren’t any women writers in the course. I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth."

Some have defended him, whilst others are outraged. He himself has since backed off and apologized for those comments.

Now, here's what I think: David Gilmour's situation is an example of many things, not the lest of which is that you can never be too careful nowadays in making 'absolute statements'. As an English litt student myself, I of course prefer a passionate teacher vs a dispassionate teacher; that being said, we can't only and always do what we love. If he only wanted to teach male writers, then let that course be entitled as such. As it is, it's dishonest to his students to teach an English literature class; he robs and denies them of an all-emcopassing view of that Literature (it wasn't only written by "Serious heterosexual guys"). "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy".