Not-So-Cancelled (or, Hey, We’re Still Talking About the Wrong Things)

shaunduke
6 min readFeb 13, 2022

In a semi-recent piece for The Nation, David Klion discussed what is by now no longer the “latest” bit of Internet “free speech” theater in response to the cancellation of a collection of Norman Mailer’s essays. I shouldn’t say “cancelled,” really. The publisher passed on publishing the book, which means it could very well be published somewhere else (even by Mailer’s estate), thereby making the meaning of a “cancellation” rather dubious at best. Can you really be “cancelled” in the lofty meaning that term has now taken (undeserved…

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shaunduke

SFF fan, professor, editor, podcaster on @skiffyandfanty. Caribbean SFF, postcolonialism, Digital Rhetoric. Opinions my own. He/Him patreon.com/thejoyfactory