Author Sue Monk Kidd, who is white, employs stereotypes of African Americans and problematically appropriates features of black writing in her novel "The Secret Life of Bees." Nevertheless, this book is worth teaching, not only because it has acquired much cultural capital but also because it offers students a way to examine relationships between…

Locates postcolonial pedagogy within the context of institutional circuits of production and consumption, finding that instead of expanding the student's experience with difference and diversity, it contains them through a managed encounter with otherness. (TB)

Argues for a revision of relativism in literary interpretation that supports, rather than undermines, efforts to explore the possibility of judgments of relative plausibility. Illustrates norms of interpretation and canons of evidence with examples drawn from interpretations of Shakespearean plays. Allays fears that any form of relativism…

A paper presented at annual convention of National Council of Teachers of English (Atlanta, November 27, 1970). (Editor/RD)