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Doris Witt - Black Hunger: Soul Food And America - 9780816645510 - V9780816645510
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Black Hunger: Soul Food And America

€ 19.99
€ 19.63
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Description for Black Hunger: Soul Food And America Paperback. Num Pages: 304 pages, 9ill. BIC Classification: 1KBB; JFSL3; JHMC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 229 x 148 x 17. Weight in Grams: 413.

Explores the complex relationship between food and African American history

In 1889, the owners of a pancake mix witnessed the vaudeville performance of a white man in blackface and drag playing a character called Aunt Jemima. This character went on to become one of the most pervasive stereotypes of black women in the United States, embodying not only the pancakes she was appropriated to market but also post–Civil War race and gender hierarchies—including the subordination of African American women as servants and white fantasies of the nurturing mammy.

Using the history of Aunt Jemima as a springboard for exploring ... Read more

Highlighting the importance of food for men as well as women, Doris Witt traces the promotion of soul food by New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne and its prohibition by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and comedian-turned-diet guru Dick Gregory. A discussion of cookbook author Vertamae Grosvenor, who distanced herself from the myth of plantation mammy by reimagining soul food as "vibration cooking," sets the stage for Witt's concluding argument that the bodies and appetites of African American women should be viewed as central to contemporary conversations about eating disorders and reproductive rights.

Witt draws on vaudeville, literature, film, visual art, and cookbooks to explore how food has been used both to perpetuate and to challenge racial stereotypes. Raising her fist in a Black Power salute, wielding her spatula like a sword, Aunt Jemima steps off the pancake box in a righteous fury.

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Product Details

Publisher
University of Minnesota Press
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2004
Condition
New
Weight
413g
Number of Pages
306
Place of Publication
Minnesota, United States
ISBN
9780816645510
SKU
V9780816645510
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-50

About Doris Witt
Doris Witt is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa.

Reviews for Black Hunger: Soul Food And America
"What emerges from this deeply critical, at times humorous, foray into African American food history is a theoretical work as sensuous as the subject matter. Witt takes the reader on a journey through popular food discourses and along the way unpacks the signifiers of belonging, resistance, abjection, purity, and lust. Reading Black Hunger, I was reminded that food is not ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for Black Hunger: Soul Food And America


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