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Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, And The Commodification Of Difference 1st Edition
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- ISBN-100813320895
- ISBN-13978-0813320892
- Edition1st
- Publication dateFebruary 9, 1996
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6 x 0.59 x 9 inches
- Print length256 pages
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- Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (February 9, 1996)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0813320895
- ISBN-13 : 978-0813320892
- Lexile measure : 1490L
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.59 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,733,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #464 in Art History (Books)
- #543 in Physical Anthropology (Books)
- #1,561 in Anthropology (Books)
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Similarly (though pointing to deeper issues), there seems to be an unduly heavy reliance on the flow of language - on the drawing of elegant if relatively unsubstantiated connections and the making of neat, sweeping generalizations - over the presentation of actual evidence and a structured argument. This may be a problem of the genre, and it's not that she's off the mark on her pronouncements, but when the writer's only obvious expertise is in comparative literature, I'd prefer that historical generalizations be left out of the text. As a side note, the use of the "cannibal" theme is not, to me, justified by the arguments made in the book. It just sounds good. Overall, I felt that a lot of interesting threads were begun and never followed through, another consequence of the form-over-substance style.
I do have one serious issue with the book's intellectual honesty. Specifically, the sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit focus on what white Western males are doing to everyone else, and the elision (hah!) of any analysis of how museums, and the appropriation of elements of other cultures in general, operate in non-Western societies. Take Japanese society in relation to the US, for starters. How about an analysis of how elements of American culture are fetishized/commodified in other countries? This is actually highly relevant to whether Root's relatively political thesis of the Western colonial impulse obtains across the board, or whether a different kind of analysis (more psychological and anthropological) is required.
The themes investigated in this book, problems notwithstanding, are certainly worth the time of any thinking person. In sum, I recommend reading it with a grain of salt (or a simultaneous dose of something a little more scientific and a little less focused on stringing phrases together), and I wouldn't put it at the top of my list.
