Home Books Appropriate: A Provocation

Appropriate: A Provocation

Appropriate: A Provocation

by Paisley Rekdal

W. W. Norton & Company ·2021 ·240 pages
Best of 2021
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
I Index
76/99
Top of the Pile

92/99

Critics' Rating Index

Near the Top

54/99

Readers' Rating Index

Top of the Pile

81/99

Scholars' Citation Index

34/99

Volume of Reviews

16/99

Volume of Reader Ratings

Sign in to add to your shelf, rate, or review this book.


About This Book

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.


Reviews

"Rekdal makes the useful distinction between adaptation [...] and appropriation ..."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"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 ..."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"This book asks many thought-provoking questions for students and potential writers to consider ..."

Erica Swenson Danowitz· Library Journal Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Luckily, we [...] have Paisley Rekdal, a writing professor and poet laureate of Utah."

Carolyn Kellogg· Los Angeles Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

Preview


Reader Reviews

0 reviews

Sign in to write a review.

No reader reviews yet. Be the first!