{"id":122,"date":"2017-09-17T11:53:26","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T15:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/?p=122"},"modified":"2021-08-18T15:19:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T19:19:19","slug":"blog-post-2-culture-as-a-keyword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/2017\/09\/17\/blog-post-2-culture-as-a-keyword\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 2: “Culture” as a Keyword"},"content":{"rendered":"

A keyword that continues to crop up in our class readings and especially in Culler is \u201cculture.\u201d This focus on \u201cculture\u201d signifies current literature studies\u2019s self-consciousness in realizing that everything critics assert about a literary work is subjective, determined by the culture in which it was written and then read, and thus not a certain, all-encompassing answer. This point derives from many of the readings we have already discussed in class (Althusser, Culler, Mulvey who dwells on the symbiotic relationship between actor\/screen and viewer) and it currently pervades the study of any discipline in which culture has an impact on the resulting creation \u2013 math and science are probably free of these effects, but the humanities cannot escape it. I think \u201cculture\u201d as a term deserves scrutiny because it is frequently used throughout serious academic writing and<\/em> casual conversation, especially on the internet where a statement about culture can reach a substantial portion of the world\u2019s population without any consideration for reliability. In this way, the definition of \u201cculture\u201d becomes muddled and requires distinguishing.<\/p>\n

I have selected \u201cculture\u201d as a major keyword for my thesis research on food. In identifying \u201cfood culture\u201d as my focus — rather than \u201cfood literature,\u201d \u201cfood writing,\u201d \u201cfood instructions\/recipes\u201d — I have pinpointed a preference to focus on the sociological, relationship-oriented dynamics that food engenders in our, or a, culture. I am intrigued by recipes, technique, ingredients, and national dishes, but not just because the process of making food compels me. For the purposes of my thesis, I consider these elements of food important because, for example, a culture\u2019s popular recipes may act as medicine for an illness common to that region; a technique may have become popular because the tools needed were easily accessed or constructed, or because ancient populations perfected the technique and its modern use acts as ancestral remembrance and celebration; ingredients viewed as \u201cindigenous\u201d to a nation or \u201ctypical\u201d of its food actually represent living records of colonization or, for instance, famine (in my Writing About Food class we have learned that Columbus brought chilies to India and tomatoes to Italy, which offers a revised perspective on deeming an ingredient \u201coriginal\u201d to a land). \u201cFood culture,\u201d for me — I haven\u2019t conducted enough research to ensure this meaning is constant throughout academic writing — refers to human interactions with and because of food.<\/p>\n

Culler\u2019s statements in Chapter Three identify the dynamic I find so compelling about the interaction between a culture and its food, or food and the culture it spawns. \u201c[C]ultural studies is drawn to the idea of a direct relationship, in which cultural products are the symptom of an underlying socio-political configuration” (Culler 51). More sparsely phrased, the field is about \u201chow cultural productions work and how cultural identities are constructed and organized\u2026\u201d (44). This broad summary of cultural studies helps me understand why the term \u201cfood culture<\/em>\u201d felt relevant and apt for my thesis, even before I had considered what the phrase really meant: it focuses on the \u201cthing\u2019s\u201d (i.e. food, literature, music, films in Mulvey\u2019s case) relationship with its culture, or with cultures it has contact with. Culler employs literature to illustrate cultural studies, and I choose food. My interest in \u201cfood culture,\u201d however, seeks not to express cultural studies through the lens of food, but to examine food through the lens of cultural studies. For me, food is not the tool; cultural studies is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A keyword that continues to crop up in our class readings and especially in Culler is \u201cculture.\u201d This focus on \u201cculture\u201d signifies current literature studies\u2019s self-consciousness in realizing that everything critics assert about a literary work is subjective, determined by the culture in which it was written and then read, and thus not a certain, … Continue reading Blog Post 2: “Culture” as a Keyword<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3038,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145910,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog-posts","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}