James O. Young is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Victoria. He has published more than 40 journal articles on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of art and is the author of Global Anti-realism (1995) and Art and Knowledge (2001) and Cultural Appropriation and the Arts (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Conrad G. Brunk is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and former Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. He is the author of numerous articles and texts on ethical issues relating to technology, the environment, law, and professional practice. Dr. Brunk consults regularly for governments and international organizations on environmental and health risk management and technology policy issues.
There are several characteristics that make this collection of essays an admirable endeavour: the breadth of questions and disciplines covered - music, arts, archaeology, genetics, religion, ethnobiology - in an interdisciplinary dialogue moderated by philosophers; the passionate engagement of the authors with the ethics of appropriation of subaltern cultures by dominant Western cultures; the incisiveness of the debates over each theme discussed (one author debating with another before giving his/her own point of view in the shape of an individual article); the soundness of theoretical arguments and the stunning and provocative examples debated. (Journal of the Royal Astronomical Institute, 2011)