Gastronomic Poetry. Food and Affect in a Catalan Setting

This article aims to delineate the connections between food and affect as shown in a representative selection of poems that convey how affect can be expressed through gastronomic poetry. Central to affect theory is a drive to recognize the constant modulations of affective states and so assemble a fuller picture of life lived moment by moment. In the chosen examples, expression through poetry and the transmission of affect converge. Carner, Estellés and Rosselló-Pòrcel in some of their poems elevate food to a symbolic category associating gastronomy, sexuality, eroticism and religion. In the confluence of Food Studies and Affect Theory, the article discusses food as a way to reflect on and define a sense of belonging through metaphor and other strategies that express affect

Food and the Everyday in Spain: Immigration and Culinary Renovation

This article presents a reflection on two interrelated topics: the modification of eating habits in Spain, a key aspect of everyday life, through the presence of a substantial migration movement that started in the 1990s, and the intervention of migrant workers into the food economy, particularly in rural areas with heavy agriculture development such as seen in Lleida and its surrounding towns. It will provide a reading of two recent texts (a film and a book) that engage with issues of immigration and food. Both El próximo Oriente (2006) directed by Fernando Colomo, and La pell de la frontera (2014) authored by Francesc Serés offer evidence about contemporary Spain’s transformation through food. In these texts food is a powerful weapon of social and physical control, and encapsulates some of the many adjustments that have occurred in Spanish society. The kitchen, at home or in a restaurant, as a private or as a public space, becomes a setting to display the fine line between the familiar and the uncanny, between a domestic (safe) and a hostile environment

Daybook 1918: Early Fragments By J. V. Foix, edited and translated by Lawrence Venuti. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2019. Pp. 171. $18.95 (paperback). ISBN 9780810140653

Book review of J. V. Foix, edited and translated by Lawrence Venuti. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2019