Food and Literature

The first collection of essays charting the origins, developments, and applications of literary food studies, by leading scholars who have shaped the field.

Gitanjali G. Shahani (Edited by)

9781108426329, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 June 2018

384 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.67 kg

This volume examines food as subject, form, landscape, polemic, and aesthetic statement in literature. With essays analyzing food and race, queer food, intoxicated poets, avant-garde food writing, vegetarianism, the recipe, the supermarket, food comics, and vampiric eating, this collection brings together fascinating work from leading scholars in the field. It is the first volume to offer an overview of literary food studies and reflect on its origins, developments, and applications. Taking up maxims such as 'we are what we eat', it traces the origins of literary food studies and examines key questions in cultural texts from different global literary traditions. It charts the trajectories of the field in relation to work in critical race studies, postcolonial studies, and children's literature, positing an omnivorous method for the field at large.

Introduction. Writing on food and literature Gitanjali Shahani
Part I. Origins: 1. Commensality David B. Goldstein
2. The drive-thru supermarket: shopping carts and the foodscapes of American literature Andrew Warnes
3. Gothic vegetarianism Parama Roy
4. Good taste, good food, and the gastronome Denise Gigante
5. The art of the recipe: American food writing avant-la-lettre J. Michelle Coghlan
6. Existential disgust and the food of the philosopher Robert Appelbaum
Part II. Developments: 7. Visceral encounters: critical race studies and modern food fiction Catherine Keyser
8. The ethics of eating together: the case of French postcolonial literature Valérie Loichot
9. Eating athwart and queering food writing Elspeth Probyn
10. Utilizing food studies with children's literature and its scholarship Scott Pollard and Kara Keeling
11. Avant-garde food writing, modernist cuisine Allison Carruth
12. Comic books and the culinary logic of late capitalism Rohit Chopra
Part III. Applications: 13. Inebriation: the poetics of drink Sandra Gilbert
14. Vampires, alterity, and strange eating Jennifer Park
15. Toast and the familiar in children's literature Frances E. Dolan
16. Food, humour, and gender in Ishigaki Rin's poems Tomoko Aoyama
17. Food, hunger, and Irish identity: self-starvation in Colum McCann's 'Hunger Strike' Miriam Mara
18. Postcolonial hungers Deepika Bahri
Afterword Darra Goldstein.

Subject Areas: Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA]