Cultural non-fiction – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction, by Dane Kennedy

A Kindle ebook displaying the text-only cover of Decolonization:A Very Short Introduction is on a white faux-marble table, propped up on the edge of a small gray platter of Thanksgiving food.

(Click to buy it on Bookshop.) How’s this for seasonal reading? I’ve done a little bit of work around the subject of decolonization. I’ve contributed to papers, taught class units, and read a lot of writing from Africa, Asia and Indigenous Oceania on the subject. Yet it never really dawned on me that the academicContinue reading “[REVIEW] Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction, by Dane Kennedy”

[REVIEW] Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest To Buy Black In America’s Racially Divided Economy, by Maggie Anderson

(Buy it on Bookshop here. Or not.) To cut right to the chase, this book really pissed me off. On its face, it’s a real life account of an affluent, educated Black family in Chicago who decided to spend all of 2009 buying from only Black businesses in order to demonstrate the ethnic disparities inContinue reading “[REVIEW] Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest To Buy Black In America’s Racially Divided Economy, by Maggie Anderson”

[BOOKLIST] Ten For The Times: A Social Justice Booklist To Keep Us Moving Forward

A protest held by many people of different races and genders, behind a waist-high temporary mental fence. Several of the people are holding handmade signs with protest slogans like BLM, Justice for George Floyd, and White Silence Is Violence

Where do I even begin with today, fellow readers? I woke up suddenly at 5 am Korean time on April 20th, only to find that the Derek Chauvin verdict would be read in an hour. I fixed myself a cup of tea and sat, thinking, waiting. I wasn’t expecting much–the USA has done a remarkableContinue reading “[BOOKLIST] Ten For The Times: A Social Justice Booklist To Keep Us Moving Forward”

[REVIEW] In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared, by Christopher Robbins

(This book is also published under the title Apples Are From Kazakhstan). ⭐ star out of 5. ⠀🗺⠀This is a weird one. I appreciated this book–it’s a travelogue of two years spent exploring Kazakhstan–but I didn’t like it at all. It did a great job selling me on how fascinating Kazakhstan and its history are,Continue reading “[REVIEW] In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared, by Christopher Robbins”

[REVIEW] Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture, Hisham D. Aidi

(Buy it HERE.) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It is *really* hard to try and write a concise review of Rebel Music simply because there’s so much to talk about. In contrast to the polemics of a lot of popular writing about Islam, Aidi instead takes us on a cultural tour of music in and of the Muslim world.Continue reading “[REVIEW] Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture, Hisham D. Aidi”