Research essay
length: about 1500-2000 words (include essay, quotes, works cited)
Your essay will be
graded for originality, persuasiveness, and insightfulness of argument,
strength of textual analysis, use of textual examples, quality of research, synthesis of research
ideas, organization, writing skills, MLA format.
Research:
Students will appraise the usefulness of research sources, use research
as participation in critical dialogue, communicate research materials
to an academic audience.
Research materials: Include at least 4 research sources e.g., peer reviewed journal articles, chapter(s) from ebook, online articles, magazines, encyclopedia
Support
your argument with references to the chosen texts and research
sources. You may consider research information for your topic and
texts that is material to your essay. Provide a title for your essay.
This assignment
leaves you the choice of which two texts to focus on, what food-related topic
to explore, and what relative weight to give to similarities and
differences. Alternatively, you may focus mainly on similarities so as to
study a food-related topic in the two texts.
Choose two of the following primary texts and write an essay in which you develop a strong argument in a food-related topic.
Make sure you
do not choose text(s) that you have analyzed in your short
essay, creative response project, or presentation. Essays that
do not follow this guideline will receive a zero.( I have removed the topics i did my essays on)(also can you let me know the 2 topics that you have chosen as i need to submit it as well ( and i will give you the pdfs for it too please do let me know).
Primary texts:
Laura Palotie, “A Finnish Poet and His Pastry”
Diana Abu-Jaber, “A House and a Yard”
David Wong Louie, “Eat, Memory”
Blake Gopnik. “The
Big Debate: Can Food Be Serious Art?”
Susan
Smillie. “Is Food Art?”
Jason Farago, “Chef Ferran Adrià and the Problem of Calling Food Art”
Lad Tobin, “Here Everything is Possible”
Bob
Dylan, “One More Cup of Coffee”
Taylor Swift, “Champagne Problems”
Lauren
van den Berg, “Comfort with Eggs”
Edwidge Danticat, “A Grain of
Comfort: The Magic of Simple White Rice”
Lisa Yockelson, “In Pursuit of
the Cream Waffle”
Amanda
Mull, “Instagram Food is a Sad, Sparkly Lie: How Influencers Transformed Eating
from an Activity into an Aesthetic”
Alicia
Kennedy. “The Biggest Names in Food are Just Regular People on Tik
Tok”
Jaya
Saxena, “Why Do Tech Bros Have Such a Weird Relationship to Food?”
Lizzie Widdicombe, “The End of Food”
Hillary Bonhomme, “Why is There So Much Food in My Skin
Care?”
Natalie
Baszile. “The Boudin Trail”
J.J. Goode, “Single-Handed Cooking”
Mark Morton, “Table Manners”
Shirley Le,
“The MSG Myth: My ‘Clean Eating’ Obsession Alienated Me from My Community”
Chelsea Ritschel, “Botanist Criticizes ‘Clean Eating’ Instagrammers after One Topped a Pudding with Toxic Flowers”
Ray Gonzalez, “Hangover Cure: The Red Badge of Menudo Stains”
Jhumpa
Lahiri, “Indian Takeout”
Maya Angelou, “The Health-Food Diner”
Lev Grossman, “General Tso’s Tofu”
Janet Raloff and Peter Menzel, “Insects (The
Original White Meat)”
Michael Paterniti, “The Last Meal”
Interstellar, dir. Christopher Nolan
Anna Lúcia Carolsfeld
& Susan L. Erikson, “Beyond Desperation: Motivations for Dumpster™ Diving
for Food in Vancouver”
Bryan Johnston, “every night at @dunkin. Not including the 40 bagels too”
Campbell McGrath, “Capitalist Poem #5”
Calvin Trillin, “Magic Bagel”
Tracy K. Smith, “The Good Life”
Hanif
Abdurraqib, “Ode To The Waffle House”
Daniel Tobin, “A Waffle House near the Biltmore House”
Jeffery Renard Allen, “Appropriation Is an Undeniable Fact of
Human Interaction (aka Authentic African Cooking)”
Choose a research
topic that you are interested in. Potential research topics:
n.b. Some research topics may overlap one another.
food images, or absence / scarcity of food images
food on social media
food and cultural
traditions, cultural authenticity
food and memory (place, home; spiritual connection; death; loss, etc.)
food and identity
(cultural, national, gender, social status etc.)
food and capitalism: social injustice, social inequality; mass production food
industry; globalization; industrial food and nutrition
healthy food and junk
food; fast food stigma; food choice; food snobbery; food prejudice
healthism; clean eating; tech bro biohacking diet; meal replacement; food skincare products
food symbolism; food rituals; food as art; food as language; food as plot device
food and emotion (pleasure, depression, mental health, etc.)
comfort foods
American Dream, assimilation into American culture, respectability; table manners, etiquette
wildlife preservation; sustainable food consumption; environmental
degradation; ecological sustainability; blight pathogen and food crop;
food and human livelihood
food waste, food insecurity, survival strategies, scavenging, equitable food system, food activism
kitchen; eating space, e.g., outdoors; indoors (eatery, restaurant, at home, etc.)
food and disability