Here’s Your Reading Summary

Kicking off this month’s theme on culture, we have four fresh reads on the topic of cultural appreciation vs cultural appropriation. Cultural appreciation occurs when one understands and learns about another culture in order to facilitate cross-cultural communication and to broaden their understanding of the world. However, cultural appropriation occurs when one uses one aspect of a culture that does not belong to one for their personal interest. It often becomes even more controversial when appropriation is carried out by a majority group against minority cultures. Enjoy the newsletter to learn more about the topic.

• Read 4 riveting texts about he difference between Cultural Appreciation vs Appropriation 
• In our Literary Journal, Natalie explores the mysterious collaborative fiction community, the SCP Foundation

This Week’s Reads:
Cultural Appreciation VS Appropriation

Clicking on the title or book image will link you to the full text.

The author argues that there are three potential harms with cultural appropriation: nonrecognition, misrecognition, and exploitation. Discerning whether these harms are present or absent offers a means of placing specific instances of cultural appropriation on a spectrum of harmfulness and it may be avoided.

This article discusses the key modes of cultural appropriation as diffusion, acculturation, and assimilation, often situated within conceptions of cultural property and cultural heritage. It emphasizes the metacultural discourse that marks instances of cultural appropriation and the inequality that often characterizes the parties to such episodes.

This paper analyses visual culture in social media and art in classrooms from the perspectives of both cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. The author hopes that the methods and questions discussed will help teachers and students to move from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation.

In this article, the author considers the kimono protests in the 2015 Boston Museum of Fine Arts an occasion to consider the contemporary debates about cultural appropriation and appreciation. She proposes a theatrical ethic of ‘inappropriation’ as a means of moving discourse beyond appreciation and appropriation.