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Meatloaf, fried chicken, Jell-O, cake--because foods are so very common, we rarely think about them much in depth. The authors of Cooking Lessons however, believe that food is deserving of our critical scrutiny and that such analysis yields many important lessons about American society and its values. This book explores the relationship between food and gender. Contributors draw from diverse sources, both contemporary and historical, and look at women from various cultural backgrounds, including Hispanic, traditional southern White, and African American. Each chapter focuses on a certain food, teasing out its cultural meanings and showing its effect on women's identity and lives. For example, food has often offered women a traditional way to gain power and influence in their households and larger communities. For women without access to other forms of creative expression, preparing a superior cake or batch of fried chicken was a traditional way to display their talent in an acceptable venue. On the other hand, foods and the stereotypes attached to them have also been used to keep women (and men, too) from different races, ethnicities, and social classes in their place.
Tracing the intertwined roles of food, ethnicity, and regionalism in the construction of American identity, this textbook examines the central role food plays in our lives. Drawing on a range of disciplines_including sociology, anthropology, folklore, geography, history, and nutrition_the editors have selected a group of engaging essays to help students explore the idea of food as a window into American culture. The editors' general introductory essay offers an overview of current scholarship, and part introductions contextualize the readings within each section. This lively reader will be a valuable supplement for courses on American culture across the social sciences.
The Archaeology in Annapolis project has been one of the most important undertaken by historical archaeologists. Notable for its emphasis on public education and its use of citywide research, it has carried out an innovative analysis of material culture to show how a wide range of social and economic classes residing in Maryland's capital responded over time to a changing world.Annapolis Pasts offers a close look at the trend-setting project. Drawing on more than a decade of study, it provides a cross-section of the substantive and theoretical issues that Archaeology in Annapolis has explored. The volume gathers the work of some of the most innovative authorities in historical archaeology al...
The sixteen essays in The Larder argue that the study of food does not simply help us understand more about what we eat and the foodways we embrace. The methods and strategies herein help scholars use food and foodways as lenses to examine human experience. The resulting conversations provoke a deeper understanding of our overlapping, historically situated, and evolving cultures and societies. The Larder presents some of the most influential scholars in the discipline today, from established authorities such as Psyche Williams-Forson to emerging thinkers such as Rien T. Fertel, writing on subjects as varied as hunting, farming, and marketing, as well as examining restaurants, iconic dishes, ...
For more than a decade a vicious civil war has torn the fabric of society in the West African country of Sierra Leone, forcing thousands to flee their homes for refugee camps and others to seek peace and asylum abroad. Sierra Leoneans have established new communities around the world, in London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Yet despite the great geographic range of this diaspora and the diverse ethnic backgrounds among Sierra Leoneans settled in the same communities abroad, these Africans have come to understand and express their shared identity through religious rituals, social engagements, and material culture. In An Imagined Geography, anthropologist JoAnn D'Alisera d...
Compelling, in-depth analysis of Shaker villages that sheds light on how communal attitudes helped to liberate Shaker women. Drawing on archival material from Shaker members, observers, and apostates, noted historian Suzanne R. Thurman offers a scholarly yet eminently readable study of life in two of the oldest, most prominent American Shaker villages: the Harvard and Shirley communities of Massachusetts. Even as she delves into the complex fabric of Shaker social life, Thurman challenges traditional perceptions of gender roles within the community. Shaker spiritual and social ethics, she points out, strongly favored women. Celibacy and an androgynous theology, for instance, allowed androgyn...
This book is the first to focus specifically upon the relationship between refugees and intercultural transfer over an extensive period of time. Since circa 1830, a series of groups have made their way to Britain, beginning with exiles from the failed European revolutions of the mid-nineteenth century and ending with refugees who have increasingly come from beyond Europe. The book addresses four specific questions. First, what roles have individuals or groups of refugees played in cultural and political transfers to Britain since 1830? Second, can we identify a novel form of cultural production which differs from that in the homeland? Third, to what extent has dissemination within and transf...
Italian-Americans compose one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, numbering more than 14 million in the 1990 census. Though they have often been portrayed in fiction and film, these images are often based on stereotypes not borne out among the immigrant and assimilated population.
This interdisciplinary study examines the theme of consumption in Asian American literature, connection representations of cooking and eating with ethnic identity formation. Using four discrete modes of identification--historic pride, consumerism, mourning, and fusion--Jennifer Ho examines how Asian American adolescents challenge and revise their cultural legacies and experiment with alternative ethnic affiliations through their relationships to food.