Rethinking Chicana/o Literature through Food

As Food Studies has grown into a well-established field, literary scholars have not fully addressed the prevalent themes of food, eating, and consumption in Chicana/o literature. Here, contributors propose food consciousness as a paradigm to examine the literary discourses of Chicana/o authors as they shift from the nation to the postnation.

"Editors Nieves Pascual Soler and Meredith E. Abarca offer in their collection, Rethinking Chicana/o Literature through Food: Postnational Appetites, a cornucopia of exceptional essays that apply their newly constructed theoretical paradigm based on food and food consciousness in the analysis and hermeneutics of Chicano/a literary production. The authors brilliantly posit that food preparation and consumption extant in literary discourse is a vehicle of communication encoding various acts of rebellion against marginalization and exclusion in a patriarchal nation. Foodways, Soler and Abarca splendidly and provocatively assert, provide a means of 'redefining subjectivities in postnational cultures.' This is a must-read scholarly work for those interested in the construction of national and postnational subjectivities." - María Herrera-Sobek, Associate Vice Chancellor, Professor of Chicana/o Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA "Covering a diverse range of writers and texts, this collection is a valuable contribution to food studies and literary scholarship that has overlooked the presence of food and consumption in Chicana/o writing. Abarca and Pascual Soler provide a much-needed study on how food in Chicana/o literature creates and represents consciousness/concientización, thus shifting the Anzaldúan border paradigm from an 'open wound' to an 'open mouth.' A study like this was long overdue." - Cristina Herrera, Associate Professor of Chicano and Latin American Studies, California State University, Fresno, USA

Meredith E. Abarca, University of Texas, El Paso, USAPaul Allatson, University of Technology, Sydney, AustraliaLaura P. Alonso Gallo, Barry University, Miami, USASuzanne Bost, Loyola University, Chicago, USANorma E. Cantú, University of Missouri-Kansas City, USANorma L. Cárdenas, Oregon State University, USAElizabeth Lee Steere, University of West Georgia, USAMimi Reisel Gladstein, University of Texas, El Paso, USANieves Pascual, University of Jaén, SpainHeather Salter, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, USAEdith Vásquez, Pitzer College, USA Irene Vásquez, University of New Mexico, USA