ENG 589: Issues in Writing – Food Rhetorics

This course will introduce you to the methods and methodologies used in writing studies to research
food. From how cookbooks memorialize communities, to feminist food movements, to cooking on
social media, we will focus on various approaches to studying food, including ethnography,
rhetorical analysis, content analysis, new materialism, and media studies. Each week focuses on a
different theme and its connections to rhetoric and writing studies more broadly. You’ll explore
food rhetorics from different angles and apply the methods we cover as you work toward a research
paper and presentation contributing to our understanding of food rhetorics.

Learning Outcomes
• Understand the ways food has been studied in the field of rhetoric, composition, and literacy
• Develop new understandings of food and its importance in history and contemporary
society, culture, and politics
• Analyze and evaluate ideas, arguments, and interpretations
• Develop advanced skills in writing and presenting
• Compare and evaluate approaches, theories, and methods that relate to the study and
understanding of food
• Engage in an interdisciplinary conversation about food studies

How to Engage Texts and Prepare for Class

I will refer to our course materials as texts because, as you’ll see, we will read books and articles,
listen to podcasts, and browse websites. Please come to class each week ready to discuss the
assigned texts. We all need to read and write to get the most out of this course. Therefore, I
expect you to read/listen to all of the material assigned for each week’s discussion. When
reading, take notes on the following:
• Write down questions you have
• List and define key terms and theories, especially those that connect to rhetoric
• Note how what you’re reading each week connects to other texts we’ve engaged
• Consider how what you’re reading contributes to what you plan to write about in your
final paper
• Pay attention to how texts are written
o What goes in the intro, lit review, methodology, body, and conclusion?
o How are sources used to support claims?

Use your notes to write your weekly writing response.

Assignments
1. Weekly Reading Response (10%)
Each week, you will write a response (~500 words) that engages the assigned texts. I’m
not looking for right or wrong answers here. Consider these responses a space for you to
play with ideas and make connections across readings that might contribute to your final
paper. Do not simply summarize the texts. Each response must:
• Apply 1-2 of the theories from the texts to what you’re interested in researching
for the course; for example, if you want to research and analyze the horseshoe
sandwich, use a theory from that week to start doing this work

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 • Identify and explain key terms/concepts in a way that makes sense to you
• Explore connections across weeks; for example, how do readings from week 2
“talk” to week 5?
• Pose questions that could guide class discussion or your final paper
You’ll submit a digital copy before each class, but make sure you have access to your
response for class discussion. Also, when you give your in-class presentation(s), you are
not required to submit a response.

2. In-Class Presentations (10%)

Each week 1 or 2 of us will be responsible for leading the class discussion and
identifying the central claims of that week’s text(s). Presentations will take up half our
class time (I’ll lead the second half of class).

Each presenter must come to class with the following:

• Slides
• 1-page handout to guide us through your presentation (include key
terms/concepts, guiding questions, etc.)
• Reading summaries
• Questions
• 1-2 activities that engage the text(s)
• Issues and connections for the class to explore
• Examples (popular or additional scholarly texts) for the class to review that
illustrate the issues and/or perspectives from the assigned texts

An example handout and detailed presentation expectations will be provided.

3. Project Proposal + References: Midterm (20%)

For your midterm, you’ll write a project proposal explaining your exigency, connecting
your topic to food rhetorics, and utilizing one of the class methodologies and methods.
This category includes a one-on-one meeting with me and your proposal with references.

You’ll choose a conference or journal in the field to model your proposal after, so the
length will change slightly depending on your target audience. However, the general
requirements are as follows:
• 250-500 words
• Includes citations
• Includes a formatted sources page with 5 texts from class and 5 texts you found
and read on your own

A detailed assignment sheet will be provided.

4. Paper Draft + Peer Review (20%)

I believe drafting is a crucial part of the writing process. You’ll submit a partial draft
(~3000 words, excluding citations) and receive feedback from your peers. This grade
includes the draft submission and your participation in peer review.

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 5. Paper + Presentation: Final (40%)
Your paper (5000–7000 words—not including citations) should explore food rhetorics
from one or more perspectives we’ve studied. All approaches/methods are welcome, but
you will work with me to define a direction. You will present your work in progress and
receive feedback from your peers and me. This category includes a one-on-one meeting
with me, the final presentation, and the final paper.

Detailed assignment sheets will be provided.

Required Texts
The following books are required for the course (listed in order-to-be-read). Other readings will be
made available electronically.
1. Walden, Tasteful Domesticity: Women’s Rhetoric & the American Cookbook 1790-1940
2. Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics, edited by Melissa A. Goldthwaite
3. Cookery: Food Rhetorics and Social Production, edited by Donovan Conley and Justin Eckstein
4. Rice, Craft Obsession: The Social Rhetorics of Beer

Zotero WIU Food Rhetorics Library

To help us manage bibliographic data, I set up a Group Library using Zotero. Zotero is an open-
source software used to manage research materials. I use it for all my projects, which helps me keep
track of sources and create citations. Here’s some information about WIU Food Rhetorics, our
collaborative Zotero library:
• Additional Texts: A list of additional texts you might explore for your project; engaging
with items on this list is entirely optional
• Required Texts: A list of all of the required reading for the semester (subject to change)
• Resources: A list of food research-related websites and databases
• Tags: I created categories (composition/literacy; craft; feminist; rhetoric; social
media/digital; pop culture; technology; memory/place/terroir; optional) so we can easily
arrange texts that are similar and visualize what we’re reading based on the tag color

You need to create an account to access the library:

1. Go to zotero.org
2. Click “Log In” then “Register for a Free Account”
a. Use your WIU email
3. I will send you an invitation to join the WIU Food Rhetorics group
4. Accept the invitation and get familiar with Zotero

Week 1. Introduction to the Rhetoric of Food

8.25 • Charland, “Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the Peuple Québécois,” pp. 133–150
• Frye and Bruner, “Introduction,” The Rhetoric of Food: Discourse, Materiality, and
Power, pp. 1–6
• Lucaites and Condit, “Introduction,” Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader, pp.
1–19

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 • Seiler, “Let’s Move: The Ideological Constraints of Liberalism on Michelle
Obama’s Obesity Rhetoric,” The Rhetoric of Food: Discourse, Materiality, and Power,
pp. 155-170

Week 2. Memory + Place

9.1 Discuss midterm and final project requirements
Dr. B presents and models expectations for the weekly presentations
• Abarca and Colby, “Food Memories Seasoning the Narratives of Our Lives,”
pp. 1-8
• Eves, “A Recipe for Remembrance: Memory and Identity in African-American
Women’s Cookbooks,” pp. 280-297
• Holtzman, “Food and Memory,” pp. 361-378
• Leite, “Mary Karr: Memory Is ‘What You Can Smell, Touch and Taste’,” The
Splendid Table [Podcast]
• Terrio, “Crafting Grand Cru Chocolates in Contemporary France,” pp. 253-262

Week 3. Foodways + Literacy

9.8 • Ajayi and Laudic, “Black Foodways and Food Justice,” African American Studies
at Princeton University [Podcast]
• Alvarez, “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the U.S. Nuevo
South,” pp. 141-166
• Mastrangelo, “Community Cookbooks: Sponsors of Literacy and Community
Identity,” pp. 73-86
• Rumsey, “Cooking, Recipes, and Work Ethic: Passage of a Heritage Literacy
Practice,” pp. 69-95
• Woods, “Episode 77: Steven Alvarez,” Pedagogue [Podcast]

Week 4. Cookbooks from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

9.15 • Walden, Tasteful Domesticity: Women’s Rhetoric & the American Cookbook 1790-1940

Week 5. Technology in the Kitchen

9.22 Set up a time to meet with me this week to talk about potential topic ideas for
your project
• Bliss, “Visiting on the Air: Radio Homemakers and the Professionalization of
Domesticity,” pp. 999-1019
• Driftmeier, “Leanna Driftmeier, Evelyn Birkby Collection of Radiomakers,
1946,” Up a Country Lane [Archival Radio Episode]
• Duffy and Packer, “Wifesaver: Tupperware and the Unfortunate Spoils of
Containment,” Re-Understanding Media: Feminist Extensions of Marshall McLuhan,
pp. 98-118
• Enoch, “The Domestic Scientist’s Home Experiment: Spatial Rhetorics and
Professional Ethos,” Domestic Occupations: Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work, pp.
72-119
• McLuhan, “The Medium Is the Message,” Understanding Media: The Extensions of
Man, Critical Edition, pp. 17-36

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Week 6. Feminist Food Rhetorics
9.29 • Selected Chapters from Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics, edited by Melissa A.
Goldthwaite
o In addition to the introduction, the presenter(s) will be tasked with
choosing at least 2 chapters from each section for us to read
• Freeman, “Yellow Cake, Biscuits, and the Legacy of Black Baking,” Setting the
Table [Podcast]

Week 7. Multimodal + Multisensory Compositions

10.6 • Browse El Paso Food Voices [Website]
• Ceraso, Sound Never Tasted So Good: “Teaching” Sensory Rhetorics, Intermezzo
[Ebook]
• Fleitz, “(Re) Mixing Up Literacy: Cookbooks as Rhetorical Remix,” Community
Literacy Journal, pp. 52-72
• Wood, “Episode 30: Jody Shipka,” Pedagogue [Podcast]

Week 8. New Materialist Food Rhetorics

10.13 Midterm Due (Project Proposal + References) by 11:59 p.m.
No presentations this week
• Cookery: Food Rhetorics and Social Production, edited by Donovan Conley and Justin
Eckstein

Week 9. Food + the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.20 • Aiken, “Why People Baked So Much Bread During Quarantine: An
Explanation,” Huffpost [Article]
• Beardsley, “‘You Are a Bright Light in These Crazy Times’: The Rhetorical
Strategies of #BakeClub that Counter Pandemic Isolation and Systemic
Racism,” pp. 219-237
• Herakova and Cooks, “Hands in the Dough: Bread and/as a Pedagogy of
Performative Remembering,” pp. 239-256
• Zhorov, “Making that Dough,” Gravy [Podcast]
• Nosrat and Hirway, “Here’s What Else You Knead to Know Today (with W.
Kamau Bell and Stella Parks),” Home Cooking [Podcast]

Week 10. Craft as Social Rhetoric

10.27 • Rice, Craft Obsession: The Social Rhetorics of Beer

Week 11. Digital + Social Media

11.3 • Contois, “Blogging Food, Performing Gender,” The Cambridge Companion to
Literature and Food, pp. 243-261
• Diamond, “Best of 2020: Our Person of the Year, Paola Velez,” Radio Cherry
Bombe [Podcast]
• Eli et al., “Digital Food Activism: Values, Expertise and Modes of Action,”
Digital Food Activism, pp. 203-219
• Newman, “@hotdudesandhummus and the Cultural Politics of Food,” Food
Instagram: Identity, Influence & Negotiation, pp. 33-46

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 • Presswood, “Constitutive Rhetoric and Digital Communities,” Food Blogs,
Postfeminism, and the Communication of Expertise: Digital Domestics, pp. 43–62

Week 12. Pop Culture

11.10 ~3000 word draft of paper due by 11:59 p.m.
No presentations or reading responses this week (and moving forward)
• Bon Appétit, “How to Make Drunken Noodles & Clams,” YouTube [Video]
• Branch, “‘Taste Analytically’: Julia Child’s Rhetoric of Cultivation,” pp. 164-184
• Harris et al., “A New Podcast Is Exploring the Reckoning that Happened at
Bon Appétit. Here’s How the Publication Ended up in Hot Water,” Insider
[Article]
• Hawley, “Pie as Nostalgia: What One Food Symbolizes for Every Generation of
Americans,” Devouring Cultures: Perspectives on Food, power, and Identity from the
Zombie Apocalypse to Downton Abbey, pp. 145–164
• Matwick and Matwick, “Multimodal Recipe Telling on Cooking Shows,” Food
Discourse of Celebrity Chefs of Food Network, pp. 23-47
• Reinhard and Ganguly, “Learning How to Cook Without Lifting a Knife: Food
Television, Foodies, and Food Literacy,” Eating Fandom: Intersections Between Fans
and Food Cultures, pp. 71-88

Week 13. Peer Review + Presentation Guidelines

11.17 The first half of class will be devoted to peer review. We’ll spend the second half
discussing presentation guidelines and how you’ll move your project forward.
• “Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers,
and Authors” [Google Doc]

Week 14. Thanksgiving Break

11.24 Have a good break!

Week 15. Individual Meetings

12.1 Everyone will sign up for a meeting during class time to discuss drafts + final projects
one-on-one.

Week 16. Final Presentations

12.8 • Submit your presentation slides and handout by 12 p.m.
• Present your food rhetorics paper to the class

Final Paper due 12.15

• Submit your final paper by 11:59 PM on Thursday, 12.15

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Writing Center
www.wiu.edu/uwc
The University Writing Center (UWC) is your go-to resource at any stage of the writing process!
Appointments are available in three formats: in-person (Malpass Library or QC Complex 2219),
online (real-time with video or chat and document shared space) and e-tutoring (asynchronous
feedback on an uploaded paper).

Writing Center Hours

M – Th 9 AM – 9 PM
F 9 AM – 4 PM
Sun 2 – 9 PM

Register and begin self-scheduling appointments here: https://wiu.mywconline.com

General Course Policies

Changes in the Syllabus
As the semester unfolds, it might be desirable/necessary to make changes to this syllabus. I reserve
the right to make changes and will post any updates to Western Online.

COVID-19
The following information comes directly from WIU’s Return to Campus website:
Western Illinois University is currently not mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for students
or employees for the fall 2022 semester, however, this could change at any time depending
on federal and state requirements. The University expects members of the campus
community to receive their COVID-19 vaccine as well as respective booster(s) when eligible.

Once individuals receive their COVID-19 vaccine, they are encouraged to submit proof of
vaccination to assist the university with tracking.

Additionally, please be prepared to mask when requested. Your peers may be immunocompromised,
care for someone who is immunocompromised, or wish to mask for extra protection. Regardless of
the reason, please be respectful and put on a mask if asked.

Professionalism and Respect

Respect and care should be shown in your behavior whether you’re asking a presenter a question
during class, participating in peer review, or completing an assignment. Interactions with me and
your classmates should be just as respectful as they would be in person. Disruptive, disrespectful,
threatening, or harassing behavior toward any individual in our class environment will not be
tolerated and may result in dismissal from class. If you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of the
class, including class discussions, please contact me ASAP so we can work on addressing your
concerns.

Absences and In-Person Attendance

You will be allowed two absences this semester. For these two absences, I don’t distinguish between
excused and unexcused. These are your absences to do with what you wish—you don’t need to
explain yourself to me. Absences beyond two may significantly impact your ability to keep up with
course material and your final course grade. Please see me immediately if you need to make
accommodations.

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Unless you live outside of Macomb, I expect you to attend class in person. Please arrive on time
ready to work and plan to stay for the duration of the class. That being said, we’re still dealing with
COVID-19 and illness happens. If you do not feel well, do not come to class. Send me an email and
join the class via Gather.Town (the link is on Western Online).

Late Work, Make-up Policy, and Extensions

I do not accept late weekly reading responses, so even if you’re not in class, make sure you turn in
the work that was due that day. Late project proposals and papers will lose 1/4 of a letter grade for
every day—not class meeting—they are late. Please see me immediately if you’re having trouble
submitting work on time.

Additionally, if you need an extension, you must message me at least 24 hours in advance. I will
provide you with an updated due date and expectations at that time. Extensions aren’t always
possible (e.g., you can’t get an extension on an in-class presentation you signed up to give on a
scheduled day), but sometimes we just need a bit more time.

University Policies
Students’ Rights and Responsibilities
Full Policy: http://www.wiu.edu/provost/students.php

Academic Integrity
Responsible academic conduct is required in this and all other WIU courses. Plagiarism and
cheating are serious infractions subject to University policy on academic integrity. Scholastic
dishonesty in any portion of the work for this course shall be grounds for awarding a grade of F for
the assignment or an F for the entire course, and further disciplinary action may be taken.

It is crucial that you turn in your own work and that you document the sources for ideas that are not
your own. If you are using material or ideas from another source, including the internet and any
graphics, and have questions about how to properly document the material, you should consult a
style manual for guidelines. If you remain unsure or if you have any questions about what constitutes
plagiarism or cheating, please contact me before the assignment is due or test is given.

Please note that turning in work for this class that was prepared for another class or by another
individual will be considered cheating. The policy on plagiarism and cheating applies to all drafts, as
well as final products, turned in for this course.

For the university’s policy on academic integrity, including plagiarism and cheating, refer to
http://www.wiu.edu/policies/acintegrity.php.

Incompletes
An incomplete (“I”) grade will be given in extraordinary circumstances (i.e., prolonged illness, death
in family) at my discretion. It will not be considered unless the amount of work remaining in the
course is limited and you had a passing grade before the incomplete assignment. The assignment of
an “I” requires a written agreement between me and you specifying the time and manner in which
you will complete the required assignments. Failure to adhere to the contract could result in an F for
the missing work.

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Accessibility Statement
Students with disabilities: In accordance with University values and disability law, students with
disabilities may request academic accommodations where there are aspects of a course that result in
barriers to inclusion or accurate assessment of achievement. To file an official request for disability-
related accommodations, please contact the Disability Resource Center at 309-298-2512,
disability@wiu.edu or in 143 Memorial Hall. Please notify the instructor as soon as possible to
ensure that this course is accessible to you in a timely manner.

Disability Resources Center

http://www.wiu.edu/student_services/disability_resource_center/

Students with Disabilities

http://www.wiu.edu/student_services/career_development_center/studentsWithDisabilities.php

Title IX
University values, Title IX, and other federal and state laws prohibit sex discrimination, including
sexual assault/misconduct, dating/domestic violence, and stalking. If you, or someone you know,
has been the victim of any of these offenses, we encourage you to report this to the Title IX
Coordinator at 309-298-1977 or anonymously online at:
http://www.wiu.edu/equal_opportunity_and_access/request_form/index.php. If you disclose an
incident to a faculty member, the faculty member must notify the Title IX Coordinator. The
complete Title IX policy is available at: http://www.wiu.edu/vpas/policies/titleIX.php.

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