Carnal Appetites

by Elspeth Probyn

In Carnal Appetites , Elspeth Probyn charts the explosion of interest in food - from the cults that spring up around celebrity chefs, to our love/hate relationship with fast food, our fetishization of food and sex, and the impact of our modes of consumption on our identities. 'You are what you eat' the saying goes, but is the tenet truer than ever? As the range of food options proliferates in the West, our food choices become inextricably linked with our lives and lifestyles. Probyn also tackles issues that trouble society, asking questions about the nature of appetite, desire, greed and pleasure, and shedding light on subjects fast food, vegetarianism, food sex, cannibalism, forced feeding, and fat politics.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2000

About the author

Elspeth Probyn is an Australian academic. She is currently Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probyn, whose background is in queer and gay studies, draws upon Foucault and Deleuze to present a seriously wonderful concept about food's ability to open up how we think about our bodies and our identities. She takes the "multi-vocal" properties of food, it's ability to act as a physical necessity and a social/cultural/economic/political marker, and puts it to good use. AWESOME BOOK.

[Leona]

nom nom

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wrote about 15 pages worth of notes from this text and ended up using about one or two quotations, if that. A dead end for my own writing, but Probyn is a critical writer who is engaging enough to allow sustained and concentrated reading over a long period of time (in a day) without losing patience, focus or whatnot.