Das Politische der Mahlzeit reicht vom komplexen Setting am Familientisch bis zum Staatsbankett, vom Status einer Speise bis zur Verweigerung von Nahrung im Hungerstreik. Die Beiträger/innen des vorliegenden Bandes nutzen diese Spannbreite, um das Essen als den politischen Brennpunkt auszuloten, den es nicht nur, aber besonders in der Gegenwart darstellt. The political meal encompasses the complex setting of meals at the family table as well as the state banquet; it reaches from the social status of a dish to the refusal of food in a hunger strike. The contributors of this volume use this breadth to examine food and eating as the kind of political arena they constitute not only but particularly in the present.

In Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity, and Symbolism, Michael Owen Jones tackles topics often overlooked in foodways. At the outset he notes it was Victor Frankenstein’s “daemon” in Mary Shelley’s novel that advocated vegetarianism, not the scientist whose name has long been attributed to his creature. Jones explains how we communicate through what we eat, the connection between food choice and who we are or want to appear to be, the ways that many of us self-medicate moods with foods, and the nature of disgust. He presents fascinating case studies of religious bigotry and political machinations triggered by rumored bans on pork, the last meal requests of prisoners about to be executed, and the Utopian vision of Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of England’s greatest poets, that was based on a vegetable diet like the creature’s meals in Frankenstein. Jones also scrutinizes how food is used and abused on the campaign trail, how gender issues arise when food meets politics, and how eating preferences reflect the personalities and values of politicians, one of whom was elected president and then impeached twice. Throughout the book, Jones deals with food as symbol as well as analyzes the link between food choice and multiple identities. Aesthetics, morality, and politics likewise loom large in his inquiries. In the final two chapters, Jones applies these concepts to overhauling penal policies and practices that make food part of the pains of imprisonment, and looks at transforming the counseling of diabetes patients, who number in the millions.

The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies surveys the materials, approaches, concepts, and applications of the field to provide a sweeping guide to American folklore and folklife, culture, history, and society. Forty-three comprehensive and diverse chapters delve into significant themes and methods of folklore and folklife study; established expressions and activities; spheres and locations of folkloric action; and shared cultures and common identities. Beyond the longstanding arenas of academic focus developed throughout the 350-year legacy of folklore and folklife study, contributors at the forefront of the field also explore exciting new areas of attention that have emerged in the twenty-first century such as the Internet, bodylore, folklore of organizations and networks, sexual orientation, neurodiverse identities, and disability groups. Encompassing a wide range of cultural traditions in the United States, from bits of slang in private conversations to massive public demonstrations, ancient beliefs to contemporary viral memes, and a simple handshake greeting to group festivals, these chapters consider the meanings in oral, social, and material genres of dance, ritual, drama, play, speech, song, and story while drawing attention to tradition-centered communities such as the Amish and Hasidim, occupational groups and their workaday worlds, and children and other age groups. Weaving together such varied and manifest traditions, this handbook pays significant attention to the cultural diversity and changing national boundaries that have always been distinctive in the American experience, reflecting on the relative youth of the nation; global connections of customs brought by immigrants; mobility of residents and their relation to an indigenous, urbanized, and racialized population; and a varied landscape and settlement pattern. Edited by leading folklore scholar Simon J. Bronner, this handbook celebrates the extraordinary richness of the American social and cultural fabric, offering a valuable resource not only for scholars and students of American studies, but also for the global study of tradition, folk arts, and cultural practice.

In this book, Duane Jethro creates a framework for understanding the role of the senses in processes of heritage formation. He shows how the senses were important for crafting and successfully deploying new, nation-building heritage projects in South Africa during the postapartheid period. The book also highlights how heritage dynamics are entangled in evocative, changing sensory worlds.Jethro uses five case studies that correlate with the five main Western senses. Examples include touch and the ruination of a series of art memorials; how vision was mobilised to assert the authority of the state-sponsored Freedom Park project in Pretoria; how smell memories of apartheid-era social life in Cape Town informed contemporary struggles for belonging after forced removal; how taste informed debates about the attempted rebranding of Heritage Day as barbecue day; and how the sound of the vuvuzela, popularized during the FIFA 2010 Football World Cup, helped legitimize its unofficial African and South African heritage status.This book makes a valuable contribution to the field of sensory studies and, with its focus on aesthetics and material culture, is in sync with the broader material turn in the humanities.

In this book, Margaret Magat explores both the traditional and popular culture contexts of eating balut. Balut-fertilized duck or chicken eggs that have developed into fully formed embryos with feathers and beaks-is a delicacy which elicits passionate responses. Hailed as an aphrodisiac in Filipino culture, balut is often seen and used as an object of revulsion in Western popular culture. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, reality television programs, travel shows, food blogs, and balut-eating contests, Magat examines balut production and consumption, its role in drinking rituals, sex, and also the vampire-like legends behind it. Balut reveals how traditional foods are used in the performance of identity and ethnicity, inspiring a virtual online cottage industry via social media. It also looks at the impact globalization and migration are having on cultural practices and food consumption across the world. The first academic book on balut, this is essential reading for anyone in food studies, folklore studies, anthropology, and Asian American studies.

The present book is a special gift for a special colleague and friend. Defined as an “Unfestschrift,” it gives colleagues, students, and friends of Regina Bendix an opportunity to express their esteem for Regina’s inspiration, cooperation, leadership, and friendship in an adequate and lasting manner. The title of the present book, Reading Matters, is as close as possible to an English equivalent of the beautiful German double entendre Erlesenes (meaning both “something read/a reading” and “something exquisite”). Presenting “matters for reading,” the Unfestschrift unites short contributions about “readings” that “mattered” in some way or another for the contributors, readings that had an impact on their understanding of whatever they were at some time or presently are interested in. The term “readings” is understood widely. Since most of the invited contributors are academics, the term implies, in the first place, readings of an academic or scholarly nature. In a wider notion, however, “readings” also refer to any other piece of literature, the perception of a piece of art (a painting, a sculpture, a performance), listening to music, appreciating a “folkloric” performance or a fieldwork experience, or just anything else whose “reading” or individual perception has been meaningful for the contributors in different ways. Contrary to a strictly scholarly treatment of a given topic in which the author often disappears behind the subject, the presentations unveil and highlight the contributor’s personal involve¬ment, and thus a dimension of crucial importance for ethnographers such as the dedicatee.