Date of Award
5-16-2024
Publication Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing
Keywords
Consumption;Cooking;Culture;Food;Short Story
Supervisor
Susan Holbrook
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Eating food is simultaneously individuated and universal among human beings. The selection of what gets eaten or not is ultimately determined by the person themselves. However, the variety of selection or the influence of other people or institutional bodies, such as capitalistic pricing or ethnic culture, are fundamental sources of context and affective relations. Likewise, the eight stories in this short story collection will revolve around sociocultural situations in which people engage with food. Two of the eight stories take place in a speculative fiction world, in which food is characterized by empathetic consumption, where food consumption temporarily transfers an emotional response or memory or ability from the food. This consumption, in turn, alters the person’s emotional state and causes them to have a strong reaction both in their perception of the specific food and have a strong reaction as a result of the food. The other six stories depict people in an urban contemporary setting coming to their own terms with their relationship with food. These themes include food within a cooperative context, the capital exploitation of food delivery food availability, and food in relation to one’s cultural identity. The compilation and ordering of these short stories investigate people’s relationships with food, and to what degree they are mediated or suppressed by factors of efficiency, such as ease of preparation or lack of alternatives. Having these investigations set in a chiastic ordering allows for resonance, or repeated, yet differentiated encounters with similar forces.
Recommended Citation
Hang, Julie Huynh, "We Eat What We Are" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 9414.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/9414