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96/100Scholars
Author:
Paisley Rekdal
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
Date:
February 16, 2021
How do we properly define cultural appropriation, and is it always wrong? If we can write in the voice of another, should we? And if so, what questions do we need to consider first? In Appropriate, creative writing professor Paisley Rekdal addresses a young writer to delineate how the idea of cultural appropriation has evolvedâand perhaps calcifiedâin our political climate.
What The Reviewers Say
Luckily, we [...] have Paisley Rekdal, a writing professor and poet laureate of Utah. In her new book, Appropriate, Rekdal addresses the conundrum of cultural appropriation with patience and care. She is deliberate as she picks her way through questions, focusing on literature, with close readings of poetry and prose that give heft to her case. The book’s power comes from its slow progress and occasional reversals, so a summary feels unfair, but her basic thesis is that culture is situated in its moment; careful consideration of where each of us is in that moment informs what we create, how we read, what literature is lifted up and what is left out..
Rekdal examines cultural and subject appropriation in all its manifestations—commercial, ethical, and racial—by exploring poetry and other literary works.
... six cogent, thoughtful letters about the vexed problem of cultural appropriation.
The essays take the form of a series of letters addressed to a student in one of Rekdal’s creative writing classes who had asked for a recommendation for an essay to help better understand appropriation in literature.
