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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Alexandra Dane, "White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Description: Despite initiatives to 'diversify' the publishing sector, there has been almost no transformation to the historic racial inequality that defines the field. White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture (Cambridge UP, 2023) argues that contemporary book culture is structured by practice that operates according to a White taste logic.By applying the notion of this logic to an analysis of both traditional and new media tastemaking practices, Alexandra Dane examines the influence of Whiteness on the cultural practice, and how the long-standing racial inequities that characterize Anglophone book publishing are supported by systems, institutions and platforms. These the...