From Mary Rowlandson’s ostentatious refusal to eat the food offered by her Indian captors to the unnamed protagonist’s emphatic “I am what I yam!” in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, North American authors have repeatedly used food to unfold their stories. Their texts (in print and on screen) feature food–a wide variety of fare as well as scenes of its preparation, consumption, or refusal–as potent and multifaceted signifiers. In this seminar, we will explore some dimensions of this narrative tradition, along with selected critical paradigms by which literary and cultural scholarship have approached it. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which culinary signifiers have helped U.S.-American and Canadian narratives negotiate issues of national identity, ethnic belonging, gender roles, and psychological as well as bodily selfhood. We will discuss how food unfolds its signifying potential in a variety of cultural forms, such as autobiography, the novel, poetry, and film.
Please note that this is a discussion- and reading-intensive graduate seminar. Students outside the MA American Studies, including international students, are generally welcome, but should inquire for prerequisites with Prof. Kanzler (katja.kanzler@uni-leipzig.de).
- Trainer/in: Katja Kanzler