Consuming Identity: The Role of Food in Redefining the South

Ashli Quesinberry Stokes
6:30 p.m. Tues, Sept. 26, 2017, UNC Charlotte Center City

Stokes is associate professor in Communication Studies and director of the Center for the Study of the New South.

Southerners love to talk about food, their likes and dislikes, regional preferences and their own delicious stories. Food supplies a common fuel to launch discussion and often crosses lines of race, class, gender and region. Consuming Identity focuses on the role food plays in building identities–accounting for the messages food sends about who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we see others.

By sharing and celebrating both foodways and the food itself, Southerners can revel in shared histories and traditions. In this way, individuals find a common language despite race and class divisions that continue to plague the South. The rich subject of Southern fare serves up a significant starting point for understanding the powerful rhetorical potential of all food.

The book is co-authored by Wendy Atkins-Sayre, an associate professor in communication studies and director of the Speaking Center at the University of Southern Mississippi.