[Discussion] Food and Culture

[Gonul]

"Cultural Politics of Food" Special Issue of the Massachusetts Review

French philosopher and gastronome, Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin’s
famous
aphorism, “Tell me what you eat, I’ll tell you what you are” circulates
widely
in debates, and discussions about food and culture.  Such logic portends
that
because one eats curry, one is Indian; because one eats potatoes, one is

Irish. But rarely are food and cultural-national identity so neatly
aligned.
Instead, food and culture are enmeshed within a complex web of
affiliation
mediated by the interplay of race, class, gender and sexuality.
Additionally,
the movement of people and capital around the world rapidly shifts the
tenor of debates concerning the cultural politics of food.

With a view to exploring the impact of the “local” and “global” on
culture and
foodways, submissions are sought for a special issue of the
Massachusetts
Review (tentative publication of Spring 2004) to be guest edited by
Anita
Mannur. Creative non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, as well as critical

analyses of food and foodways or representations of food and foodways in
film,
literature and culture that complicate the relationship between food and

culture are welcome. Previously published work, unfortunately, cannot be

considered for inclusion in this volume.

Submissions are due by June 1, 2003. If you prefer email, please send
your
submission (attached as a Word or RTF document) to amannur@uwalumni.com.
If by
mail, please send to: Anita Mannur, Asian American Studies, 1208 W.
Nevada St,
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 6180. Feel free to contact me with
questions regarding ideas for submissions, or for further information.

Editor bio: Anita Mannur is a postdoctoral fellow in Asian American
Studies at
the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.  She is coeditor of
Theorizing
Diaspora (Blackwell, 2003) with Jana Evans Braziel. Her research on the
cultural politics of food in South Asian America is forthcoming in the
Journal
of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and in the
collection APA Pop: New Directions in Asian American Cultural Studies.