Diploma thesis "Sex on a plate: Food porn on Czech food blogs" explores the link between food and sex. It argues that this connection is deeply rooted in our culture and nowadays it is reflected in food porn circulating on social media. The aim of this thesis is not only pointig out the connection between food and sex but also demonstrate that "porn" in food porn is well justified and not at all coincidental. The phenomenon of food porn is also set in the context of a contemporary trend of online sharing. The theoretical part explores the relationship between people and food with emphasis on the differences between eating habits of men and women. Furthermore, the thesis draws attention to the similarities between food porn and sexual pornography. In the theoretical part of this thesis, I also comment on the trend of online sharing and digital narcisism. The second half of the thesis presents the chosen methodology, its design and my analysis using grounded theory, a method of qualitative research.

This study explores the visual consumption of food and its meanings through the study of narrative and nostalgia in a selection of five South African cookbooks. The aim of this study is to suggest, through the exploration of various cookbook narratives and the role that nostalgia plays in individual and collective identity formation and maintenance, that food, as symbolic goods, can act as a unifying ideology in the construction of a sense of national identity and nationhood. This is made relevant in a South African context through the analysis of a cross-section of five recent South African cookbooks. These are Shiny happy people (2009) by Neil Roake; Waar vye nog soet is (2009) by Emilia Le Roux and Francois Smuts; Evita’s kossie sikelela (2010) by Evita Bezuidenhout (Pieter-Dirk Uys); Tortoises & tumbleweeds (journey through an African kitchen) (2008) by Lannice Snyman; and South Africa eats (2009) by Phillippa Cheifitz. In order to gain an understanding of cookbooks’ significance in modern culture, it is necessary to understand that cookbooks – as postmodern texts – carry meaning and cultural significance. Through the exploration of cookbooks, as material objects of culture, one is also able to explore non-material items of culture such as the society’s knowledge, beliefs and values. Other key concepts to this study include the global growth of interest in food; the shift from the physical consumption of food to the visual consumption thereof; the roles that consumption, narrative and nostalgia play in constructing and maintaining personal and collective identities; and the role of food as a unifying ideology in the construction of a sense of nationhood. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Visual Arts / unrestricted