Description
Book SynopsisFood plays a central role in the production of culture and is likewise a powerful resource for the representation and organization of social order. Status is asserted or contested through both the materiality of food (its substance, its raw economics, and its manufacture or preparation) and through its discursivity (its marketing, staging, and the way it is depicted and discussed). This intersection of materiality and discursivity makes food an ideal site for examining the place of language in contemporary class formations, and for engaging cutting-edge debates in sociolinguistics on language materiality.In Elite Authenticity, Gwynne Mapes integrates theories of mediatization, materiality, and authenticity in order to explore the discursive production of elite status and class inequality in food discourse. Relying on a range of methodological approaches, Mapes examines restaurant reviews and articles published in the New York Times food section; a collection of Instagram posts from @ny
Trade ReviewMapes highlights how the dismissal of food privilege has become everyday. Readers of Elite Authenticity can feel that this is 'the right kind of' elitism: uncomfortable to dismiss but hard to ignore. * Allison Checkeye, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh, Language In Society *
Table of ContentsChapter One. Introduction: Elite Food Discourse Elite Pancakes: A Taste of Things to Come Social Class The Rhetorics of Food Materiality and Language Materiality Terroir and Authenticity Method Overview Chapter Two. Mediatizing Taste: Elite Authenticity in New York Times Food Section Articles Combining "Elite" and "Authenticity" Media Discourse and Mediatization Data and Case Study Design The Discourse of Elite Authenticity Disciplining Eaters Chapter Three. Between Rough and Refined: Fetishism and Condescension in @nytfood Instagram Posts The Juxtaposition of "High" and "Low" Fetishism and Food Porn Condescension and the Linguistic Marketplace Social Media and Social Capital Data and Case Study Design Between Rough and Refined Normalizing Classlessness Chapter Four. Co-constructing the Fashionable Eater: Orders of Elitist Stancetaking in "throwback Thursday" Instagram Posts What Not to Eat Stance and Elitist Stancetaking Data and Case Study Design The Orders of Elitist Stancetaking The "vengeful present tense in which Fashion speaks" Chapter Five. Spatializing Authenticity: The Micro-landscapes in/of Brooklyn Restaurants Place-making and Privileged Eating Spatiality and Semiotic Landscapes Data and Case Study Design Spatializing Elite Authenticity Producing and Occupying Elite Space Chapter Six. Food "insiders": (Dis)avowing distinction over dinner Interactionally-achieved Elite Eating Dinner Conversations and Communities of Practice Data and Case Study Design The Simultaneous (Dis)avowal of Distinction Everyday Elite Authenticity Chapter Seven. Conclusion: Globalizing Elite Authenticity The Iterations of Elite Authenticity Globalizing Elite Authenticity So How Shall We Live? Index
