White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture

By Alexandra Dane

Subjects: tastemaking, Publishing industry, Litterature anglophone, book culture, white feminism, Literary criticism and cultural theory, White Supremacy

Description: >Despite initiatives to 'diversify' the publishing sector, there has been almost no transformation to the historic racial inequality that defines the field. This Element 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, White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture 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 themes will be explored through two distinct but interrelated case studies-women's literary prizes and anti-racist reading lists on Instagram-which demonstrate the dominance of Whiteness, and in particular White feminism, in the contemporary literary discourse. - [publisher](https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/white-literary-taste-production-in-contemporary-book-culture/095C2995B5DBBCB54EC204390CA2B4BA)