CONSUMING THE AMERICAN DREAM

Many genres of American literature, including memoirs, short stories, novels, plays, creative nonfiction, and even cookbooks, explore the American Dream within their prose. Many of these texts also introduce and rely on evocations of food: its importance; its presence or absence; its physical, social, and nutritional significance; and its place in relation to the “good life” and the quest to live the American Dream. Consuming the American Dream: Essays Celebrating the Intersection of Food, Literature, and Our National Myth brings together an international group of scholars to explore the many ways food and the American Dream overlap in the nation’s literary pantheon.

Examining works including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Bich Minh Nguyen’s Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Michael Gold’s Jews without Money, and many others, this unique volume tackles themes like the role of food in American Dream fiction, stories of identity and diaspora, the kitchen as a place of both resistance and aspiration, and African American food traditions as pathways into the American Dream. By putting food at the heart of the American Dream mythos, Consuming the American Dream broadens the scope of literary food studies and cultural studies alike.

Robert C. Hauhart is a professor at Saint Martin’s University. He is the author or editor of twelve books and many published papers in sociology, law, education, and literary journals, including Significant Food (with Jeff Birkenstein) and Seeking the American Dream.

Jeff Birkenstein is an assistant professor of English at Centralia College. He teaches a range of classes on writing, food and literature, and the American Dream. He has assembled multiple coedited collections of essays, many in partnership with Professor Hauhart.