cfp.english.upenn.edu

We invite proposals for an interdisciplinary roundtable exploring the intersections of literature and cookbooks, receipt books, and domestic manuals. Do these texts constitute a literary genre and how do they map onto more established literatures? How can the narratives and recipes in cookbooks and domestic manuals expose colonial relations, imperial encounters and the legacies of empire? How can we frame a scholarly conversation regarding the intricate modes of domination and resistance built into the genre itself? What impulses do these texts share with other domestic genres such as the domestic novel, sentimental fiction, the plantation school, and so on? And how do these texts extend their reach beyond the private sphere, into larger currents of transnational exchange of bodies, ideas, and ingredients? We invite papers ranging in historical scope from early America through the 1960s. Special consideration will be given to papers that address this topic through such lenses as: gender studies, critical race theory, performance theory, borderlands, and transnationalism.

Please submit a brief (250 word) abstract and 1-page cv to cfarrish@fulbrightmail.org by Monday, January 16, 2012.

Christopher Farrish
Department of Cultural Studies
The Claremont Graduate University