Food Studies in Latin American Literature presents a timely collection of essays analyzing a wide array of Latin American narratives through the lens of food studies. Topics explored include potato and maize in colonial and contemporary global narratives; the role of cooking in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s poetics; the centrality of desire in twentieth-century cooking writing by women; the relationship among food, recipes, and national identity; the role of food in travel narratives; and the impact of advertisements on domestic roles. The contributors included here—experts in Latin American history, literature, and cultural studies—bring a novel, interdisciplinary approach to these explorations, presenting new perspectives on Latin American literature and culture.

"Collection of essays analyzing a wide array of Latin American narratives through the lens of food studies"--

Latin American publications on weight and eating disorders abound, especially in the fields of psychology and sociology. However, there are only a few articles addressing these themes in the fictional work of Latin American women authors. What Is Eating Latin American Women Writers fills a theoretical void because it speaks to an ever-growing interest in Latin American literature about women, food, and the body. This study not only traces for the first time the historical development of the topics of food, eating consumption, and body image but also features well-known authors and others who are yet to be discovered in United States. The book contributes to the ongoing critical dialogue about women and food by offering an analysis of food, weight, and eating disorders in Latin American and Latina literary production.

A foundational text in the emerging field of Latin American and Iberian food studies

In recent years, food studies scholarship has tended to focus on a number of increasingly abstract, largely unquestioned concepts with regard to how capital, markets and states organize and operate. This has led to a gulf between public policy and people’s realities with food as experienced in homes and on the streets. Through grounded case studies in seven Latin American countries, this book explores how development and social change in food and agriculture are fundamentally experiential, contingent and unpredictable. In viewing development in food as a socio-political-material experience, the authors find new objects, intersubjectivities and associations. These reveal a multiplicity of processes, effects and affects largely absent in current academic literature and public policy debates. In their attention to the contingency and creativity found in households, neighbourhoods and social networks, as well as at the borders of human–nonhuman experience, the book explores how people diversely meet their food needs and passions while confronting the region’s most pressing social, health and environmental concerns.

A COMPANION TO LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE “The work contains a wealth of information that must surely provide the basic material for a number of study modules. It should find a place on the library shelves of all institutions where Latin American studies form part of the curriculum.” Reference Review “In short, this is a fascinating panoply that goes from a reevaluation of pre-Columbian America to an intriguing consideration of recent developments in the debate on the modem and postmodern. Summing Up: Recommended.” CHOICE A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture reflects the changes that have taken place in cultural theory and literary criticism since the latter part of the twentieth century. Written by more than thirty experts in cultural theory, literary history, and literary criticism, this authoritative and up-to-date reference places major authors in the complex cultural and historical contexts that have compelled their distinctive fiction, essays, and poetry. This allows the reader to more accurately interpret the esteemed but demanding literature of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Diamela Eltit. Key authors whose work has defined a period, or defied borders, as in the cases of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, César Vallejo, and Gabriel García Márquez, are also discussed in historical and theoretical context. Additional essays engage the reader with in-depth discussions of forms and genres, and discussions of architecture, music, and film This text provides the historical background to help the reader understand the people and culture that have defined Latin American literature and its reception. Each chapter also includes short selected bibliographic guides and recommendations for further reading.

Essays by intellectuals and specialists in Latin American cultural studies that provide a comprehensive view of the specific problems, topics, and methodologies of the field vis-a-vis British and U.S. cultural studies.