This dissertation resists the tendency to focus on metropolitan patterns of consumption of major export goods like sugar and tea in order to account for the laboring bodies producing these colonial commodities, which scholars such as Alan Bewell and Charlotte Sussman ignore in their discussion on the cultural and political discourse surrounding colonialism and eighteenth-century diet. The central premise of my dissertation revolves around creole food consumption and production. Creole, a geocultural designation, refers to a fusion of people, foods, and cultures in the Atlantic rim. In the eighteenth century, colonialism functioned as a burgeoning modern system, one where both the enslaved and colonists forged new identities and foodways. In pointing out the transatlantic relationship between foodways, this dissertation broadens the "Caribbean cultural paradigm," to borrow Maureen Warner-Lewis's phrasing, to include Africa, which is often omitted. In this project, I achieve two aims. First, by reading literary texts alongside other genres such as travel narratives, captivity narratives, medical documents, and cookbooks, I uncover literary tropes embedded in archival documents such as the use of sentimentality in eighteenth-century medical writings and travelogues. Secondly, my project, drawing on Paul Gilroy's Black Atlantic and notions of "rootlessness," reassesses the colonial past from a new angle--one of creation--thereby generating new questions of what it meant to consume a creole diet, how colonial labor and diet impacted eighteenth-century identities and markets, and how racialized dietary myths were created. In so doing, I do not ignore colonialism's violence but demonstrate that creative culinary acts were one response to this violence, thereby countering the hegemonic and single story of consumption and production that often arises out of colonial stereotypes and one-sided perceptions of labor and diet. Diet as an analytical tool calls for a re-evaluation of spatial, temporal, and geopolitical discourses. Engaging Leonard Tennenhouse's model of homeland as an unobtainable "geopolitical site" for displaced British American subjects, I extend the discussion to the creole subjects of the West Indies and explore how the literature of the Americas reveals an integration and slow shift in cultural perception through the culinary adaptations required in these new environments. The simultaneous need for the enslaved and Creoles to preserve "Old World" cultural practices both as a means to survive physically (e.g., depending on ackee for food) and culturally (e.g., using dance and drums in order to communicate) and to adapt to a new environment results in the creation of a "New World" geopolitical space within the Americas. Moreover, my dissertation offers critics a way to historicize the current global food crisis by examining the emergence of local food economies and dietary practices in the context of transatlantic markets and imperial violence. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 10, 2012. / cookery, dietary consumption, Enlightenment, postcolonial theory, subsistence agriculture, transatlantic / Includes bibliographical references. / Candace Ward, Professor Directing Dissertation; Martin Munro, University Representative; Meegan Kennedy Hanson, Committee Member; Jerrilyn McGregory, Committee Member; Cristobal Silva, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_183578 |
| Contributors | Phillips, Lindsey Nicole (authoraut), Ward, Candace (professor directing dissertation), Munro, Martin (university representative), Hanson, Meegan Kennedy (committee member), McGregory, Jerrilyn (committee member), Silva, Cristobal (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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