I'm wondering about a couple of ideas for the semester paper. I'd like to work with some sort of food media, as it's a personal interest of mine.
1) I'm curious about the mediation of the "culture industry" getting ahold of a concept and adapting and changing it along the path to profit. I remember reading the blog, the Julie/Julia Project, written by Julie Powell about her struggles to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog gained popularity and Powell published a book. Then the book became a film, and mashing up Julia Child's autobiography, My Life in France. (I've read Child's and Powell's books, but I haven't seen the film.)
It appears that Adorno and Horkheimer could be relevant to this analysis, with their critical analysis of the culture industry's methods. The modern perspectives in "Mass Media," "Communication," and "Memory" would probably also be involved. I'm sure other theory applies here, from other classes, and this one, but A&H stuck out right away. I like that there would be several ways to approach the same story, because it's in several forms of media. Maybe this is too narrow, or too shallow?
2) I had mentioned previously working with the Settlement Cookbook to analyze the role this media had in encouraging assimilation of young immigrant women into American consumer culture of the early 1900s. Cookbooks of the previous centuries often included a lot of information on household management, in addition to actual culinary instruction, and so greater potential to influence the way a reader lived and consumed than just the culinary philosophy that a celebrity cookbook author might preach.
I see potential for discussing the influence of consumer culture using Benjamin and Debord, certainly. "Sense," "Memory,""Communication" and probably "Image" would make a contribution to that discussion. This scenario uses just one piece of food lit, so I'm not sure if that's better suited, or lacks the comparison potential that the first option offered.
I'd be very interested to hear if Anne or fellow classmates had any additional reading suggestions for me with regard to these topic areas. Any reviewing or workshopping of the paper, once we get to a draft stage would be helpful to me. Perhaps we could post works in progress and provide electronic feedback to an assigned partner?
(Thanks for your thoughts on this, dear readers :)
As you know from when we talked, Kim, a project engaged with cookbooks as media objects would be just fine for class. The issues you raise are not trivial; keep in mind that one of the many overarching purposes of the theories we have been reading is to show that media -- of all kinds -- are not trivial because they are inextricable from the systems and structures that shape what we can do, what we might think and express, and who, ultimately, we therefore are. Importantly, your project highlights how the matter of gender has so far been pretty much invisible in the readings so far.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to want to take on the Julie/Julia project, I would want to know what sorts of questions would guide your inquiry. What you have described so far is still a little vague for me, and so -- while the general project fits within what we have done -- I don't yet have a good sense of how to be helpful for you.
The possible Settlement Cookbook project is a little clearer to me because you are asking after the role of the cookbook in assimilating women into a range of U.S. cultural practices. There is no problem with this project focusing on the one text, for it is clear from all you have said about the book that it is rich in its actions -- and so sets up rich analysis.
Readings? This book looks like a good place to start (and it references a lot of other, earlier sources, so it would give you a good sense of which of those earlier sources you might also check) :
Inness, Sherrie A. Secret Ingredients: Race, Gender, and Class at the Dinner Table. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
I also did a quick check of the online databases in Literature and in Communication through the UWM library; lots there that looks like it might be useful.
So maybe if you were to dig into sources just a little bit, you might get a sense of what questions people have already asked and what questions you might ask (and have sufficient resources for developing responses)?
These are good directions you are setting...!
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ReplyDeleteAdvice literature of the 20th and 19th century may also be helpful to your work. These are documents that were created to aid a woman in her life and keeping a homested. However, there is obviously another aim that stems from these works and that is social control. They are essitantly created to keep a woman in the house and working there rather than have her out in the "real world". These articles may not help you directly but I would think that any essays written on the topic would lend you some assistance in your work.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who is doing a rhetorical analysis of The Joy of Cooking, and she has found a wealth of information on and from just the one text. So I think you're heading in a really interesting (and ripe) direction for your paper. It would be interesting to take a look at the way the photos, texts and layout of the cookbook have worked to influence the reader's interaction with it. If you look at What to Cook and How to Cook It next to The Art of Simple Food, you'd find two drastically different styles of cookbooks. How do they both encourage different (or similar) relationships with their readers?
ReplyDeleteOne more thought. As I was reading your post, I was reminded of a book that I haven't actually read (but that is high on my list): 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman. The Amazon reviews says, "Through food, the author records the immigrants™ struggle to reinterpret themselves in an American context and their reciprocal impact on American culture at large." It might be an interesting place to look as you work toward narrowing in on your research question.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds really interesting! I would like to add, too, that I've read/ seen several parts of this work you've been doing for a while and it's always been very interesting. I hope you keep with it as it can yield some fascinating stuff.
ReplyDeleteI like your work with either project. I thought of something similar last night at a friend's birthday party at a gay club that was blasting Paparazzi by Lady Gaga, the way the term and concept "paparazzi" has evolved from art and how it has moved through culture, starting with La Dolce Vita to Lady Gaga's version revolving around attention-hunger and daddy issues.
I think it could be interesting what you do with it, but I know you had been wanting to work the Settlement Cookbook for a while, too.