Race and Repast cover image

Race and Repast

$29.95

Foodscapes in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature
Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis
160 pages, 6 × 9
December 2022
978-1-68226-219-1 (paper)

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Race and Repast: Foodscapes in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature examines the literary foodscapes of the American South—from Jim Crow–era kitchens where White and Black Southerners reacted against racial mores, to the public dining spaces where Southerners probed the limits of racial identity, to the lunch counters that became touchstones of the Black Freedom movement. Mining literary texts by iconic authors like Ernest Gaines and Walker Percy to demonstrate that “food reflects and refracts power,” Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis wields food studies as a revelatory lens through which to view a radically segregated society that was often on the cusp of violence. Niewiadomska-Flis also provides a rich and succinct introduction to scholarship in Southern studies and food studies, making Race and Repast a compelling read that offers countless insights to experts as well as readers exploring these areas of research for the first time.

Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis is associate professor of literary studies, with a specialization in American studies, at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. Her scholarly interests include representations of foodways in literature and film; ethnic and immigrant literatures of the United States; and American television series. She is the author of The Southern Mystique: Food, Gender, and Houses in Southern Fiction and Films.

“Race and Repast makes a much-needed bridge between literary studies and food studies. Through the analysis of literary representations of spaces and relationships in the segregated South, Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis argues that food spaces are contact zones where categories of race are challenged and meanings are negotiated, making them important settings for social and cultural rituals, performances, and dramas.”
—Carrie Helms Tippen, author of Inventing Authenticity: How Cookbook Writers Redefine Southern Identity

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Food and Foodways is a series from the University of Arkansas Press that explores historical and contemporary topics in global food studies. We are committed to representing a diverse set of voices that tell lesser known food stories and to provoking new avenues of interdisciplinary research. Our strengths are works in the humanities and social sciences that use food as a critical lens to examine broader cultural, environmental, and ethical issues. In addition to scholarly books, we publish creative nonfiction that explores these topics with a focus on food’s sensory dimensions.

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