Eating Otherwise
The Philosophy of Food in Twentieth-Century Literature

'You are what you eat' is an adage taken seriously as this book uncovers connections between the alimentary and ontological.

Maria Christou (Author)

9781108416825, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 September 2017

214 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.45 kg

This book explores the philosophical implications of the popular adage that 'you are what you eat' through twentieth-century literature. It investigates the connections between the alimentary and the ontological: between what or how one eats and what one is. Maria Christou's focus is on two influential modernist figures, Georges Bataille and Samuel Beckett; and two influential postmodernist figures, Paul Auster and Margaret Atwood. She aims to theorize the relationship between modernism and postmodernism from a specifically alimentary perspective. By examining the work of these major twentieth-century authors, this book focuses on strange or unusual acts of eating - 'eating' otherwise - as a means to ways of 'being' otherwise. What can eating tell us about being, about who we are and about our being in the world? This powerful, innovative study takes literary food studies in a new direction.

Introduction, you are what you eat: thinking food otherwise
1. George Bataille's pornographic food
2. Samuel Beckett's alimentary Cogito
3. Food, the fall, and the detective: the case of Paul Auster
4. Food in Margaret Atwood's dystopias
Conclusion, modernism, postmodernism, and the otherwise of eating.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature & literary studies [D]