Appropriation Series: Part Two

What constitutes cultural appropriation, and when is it unethical? Should we adopt voices beyond our own, and if so then what factors must be weighed beforehand?  

Pressing on hard research questions may lead to ethical dilemmas of how to speak in relation to another. This panel will discuss what it means to think, research, and write across cultures and ways of being. 

This is the second of two panels on appropriation in Fall 2024. 

Bio: Ruben Espinosa is Professor of English at Arizona State University and Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). He is the author of Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism (2021), Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare’s England (2011), editor of Shakespeare/Skin (2024), and co-editor of Shakespeare and Immigration (2014). His work has appeared in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, and New Literary History, among other journals and collections. He is the President of the Shakespeare Association of America (2024-2026), and he serves on the Editorial Boards of Shakespeare Quarterly, Palgrave’s “Early Modern Cultural Studies” series, and on the Executive Board of RaceB4Race.

Bio: Curtis Austin is the Associate Director of the Humanities Institute and a historian in SHPRS.  He studies African American history with a focus on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. His first book, Up Against the Wall, examines the history of the Black Panther Party. Austin recently completed a second book entitled “Dare to Struggle: A History of the Black Power Movement.” He is currently writing “Dare to Win: A History of San Francisco 8.”

This hybrid event is hosted by Humanities Institute.