I disagree with your assessment that canonical criticism does not “give a rip” about historical context. In fact, I would posit that canonical criticism is the only approach which allows one to define the ever-changing hermenuetical shape of a text through time by seeking to understand not only what it means in the present, but what it has meant in the past. Also, it attempts to define the relationships between any two points along the line of a texts transmission through history in the communities which have held the text as authoritative.