Appropriate Paperback by Paisley Rekdal

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2021-02-16)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 176 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781324003588
• Item Weight: 221.13 grams
• Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 cm

A timely, nuanced work that dissects the thorny debate around cultural appropriation and the literary imagination.

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 evolved—and perhaps calcified—in our political climate. What follows is a penetrating exploration of fluctuating literary power and authorial privilege, about whiteness and what we really mean by the term empathy, that examines writers from William Styron to Peter Ho Davies to Jeanine Cummins. Lucid, reflective, and astute, Appropriate presents a generous new framework for one of the most controversial subjects in contemporary literature.

About the Author

Paisley Rekdal is the author of ten books of poetry and nonfiction. Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the Director of the American West Center at the University of Utah, where she is also a distinguished professor of English. Formerly the poet laureate of Utah, she lives in Salt Lake City.