Popular Culture Review 30.2 • Summer 2019 Book Review
Transitive Cultures : Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific . By Christopher B . Patterson . Rutgers University Press , 2018 . 256 pp .
ISBN : 978-0-8135-9186-5
Reviewed by Julianna Crame University of Nevada , Las Vegas
The United States ’ relationships to different , nonwhite cultures have always been tumultuous , as the nation tries to balance its imperial and neocolonial interests against its disdain for influxes of various groups of immigrants . The current political climate best illustrates the two seemingly opposing masks the United States wears : one of extreme racist vitriol that denigrates minorities in the name of white / American exceptionalism and one that appears to celebrate racial differences in the name of multiculturalism . But these two conflicting viewpoints may share more than most realize , for both can be powerful tools to uphold the white hegemony . In his book Transitive Cultures : Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific , Christopher B . Patterson examines how various authors of Southeast Asian literature question concepts of multiculturalism and diversity to demonstrate how pluralist governments use these beliefs to rule over heterogeneous populations . Through his analysis of various Anglophone texts centered on Southeast Asian populations , Patterson showcases how many are beginning to resist ideologies that insist on shallow , strictly defined notions of cultural authenticity .
275 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.2.15