Are we what we eat? One's relationship to food is closely intertwined with many aspects of one's identity including ethnicity, social class, and gender, among others. Our perception of food production, preparation and consumption practices tends to influence how we see the people who are implicated in those practices. This session will consider, through the lens of food, works created by French and Francophone authors. The session will encourage reflection on how those artists are able to address questions of identity, assimilation, marginalization, and agency using food imagery. In addition, this session will examine what these cultural products communicate regarding the relative merits of cooking as a form of creative expression or social influence (particularly for women) as compared with other means of empowerment, especially literacy.

*Interested scholars should create an account with NeMLA at www.nemla.org and submit a 300-word abstract directly to https://nemla.org/convention/2015/cfp.html#cfp15501.