Grove, Sylvia
(2018)
WRITING IN THE KITCHEN, READING AT THE TABLE: GENDER, NATION, AND CULINARY TEXTS IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FRANCE.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation demonstrates how texts about food uniquely reinforce and challenge French identities in light of increased migration and Europeanization after the mid-1990s. Maintaining that food texts, in responding to eating through language, reveal the biases of a society that have become “naturalized” through the process of consumption, “Writing in the Kitchen, Reading at the Table” argues that gendered and racialized hierarchies persist in contemporary France due to their active reinforcement in food discourse. Through close readings of four different genres published between 2000-2015—Muriel Barbery’s novel Une gourmandise (2000), Guillaume Long’s graphic novel À boire et à manger (2009-), the masculine cooking magazine BEEF! (2014-), and Léonora Miano’s memoir Soulfood équatoriale (2009)—this research identifies repeated efforts to classify individuals based on skin color, to sexualize female hunger, and to effeminize foreign men, all under the guise of promoting national inclusivity through food. Such analyses collectively suggest that food discourse is not only instrumental in structuring the relationship between gastronomy and the French national imaginary; food language also masks the continued organization of French universalist-styled policies along racial and gendered borderlines. Merging theories of the nation, literary studies, gender studies, and visual/media studies, “Writing in the Kitchen, Reading at the Table” examines the under-researched but critical role of discourse, consumption, and the body in cultural politics, calling for increased attention to food language in the conceptualization of twenty-first century French citizenship.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
26 September 2018 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
14 May 2018 |
| Approval Date: |
26 September 2018 |
| Submission Date: |
21 July 2018 |
| Access Restriction: |
5 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 5 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
210 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > French |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
food studies, French cultural studies, visual media, universalism, national idenity, bande dessinee, gender studies, Guillaume Long, Leonora Miano, Muriel Barbery, print media |
| Date Deposited: |
26 Sep 2018 22:28 |
| Last Modified: |
26 Sep 2023 05:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/34961 |
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