UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Agrarian Pasts ...

284 Pages·2014·6.79 MB·English

UC San Diego
UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Agrarian Pasts, Utopian Futures : : Food, Nostalgia, and the Power of Dreaming in Old
Comedy and the New Southern Food Movement
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7tg32193
Author
Kelting, Lily
Publication Date
2014

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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University of California
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

Agrarian Pasts, Utopian Futures: Food, Nostalgia, and the Power of Dreaming in Old
Comedy and the New Southern Food Movement

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

in

Drama and Theatre

by

Lily Kelting

Committee in charge:

University of California, San Diego

Professor Nadine George-Graves, Chair
Professor Page duBois, Co-chair
Professor Patrick Anderson
Professor Anthony Edwards
Professor Marianne McDonald

University of California, Irvine

Professor Daphne Lei

2014
Copyright
Lily Kelting, 2014
All rights reserved.
Signature Page

The Dissertation of Lily Kelting is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and
form for publication on microfilm and electronically:

Co-chair

Chair

University of California, San Diego
University of California, Irvine

2014

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Table of Contents

Signature Page ............................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ................................................................................................................. vi
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... vii
Vita……… ..................................................................................................................... x
Abstract of the dissertation ............................................................................................ xi
Introduction: Be realistic! Demand the impossible. ....................................................... 1
Why utopianism? ................................................................................................... 9
Why these case studies? ...................................................................................... 13
Methodologies ..................................................................................................... 14
Why food? ........................................................................................................... 21
Chapters ............................................................................................................... 24
Chapter One: Golden Age Utopias and the Power of Utopian Thinking in
Aristophanes’ Birds and Assemblywomen ........................................................ 30
“Outlines of a Better World”: Towards a definition of utopian performance ..... 30
Aristophanes’ novelty and utopianism ................................................................ 39
Golden Age utopias before Aristophanes ............................................................ 54
Utopianism in Aristophanes: transcending the meddlesome city ........................ 63
Polypragmosune, sophism, and the boastful chef ............................................... 68
City and country .................................................................................................. 74
A culinary free-for-all in Assemblywomen: the limit case of slavery ................. 79
Chapter Two: Utopian Thinking and Utopia at odds in Aristophanes’ Acharnians .... 89
A road map .......................................................................................................... 96
Democratic ideology and longing: a brief literature review .............................. 102
iv
Dikaiopolis at Athens ........................................................................................ 106
Utopian freedom between positive and negative freedoms ............................... 116
Utopia and the failure of democracy ................................................................. 126
Chapter Three: Regressive Temporal Logic of Paula Deen’s Southern-Fried Nostalgia
and the Seoul Food of the Future ................................................................... 139
Nostalgia as antihistory ..................................................................................... 142
Nostalgia as televisually mediated .................................................................... 146
Nostalgia at the border between regional history and American exceptionalism
........................................................................................................................... 148
Nostalgia and contemporary health concerns: on diabetes and kimchi grits ..... 154
Antihistory and temporal estrangement ............................................................. 159
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the afterlife of the spoken menu minstrel show 166
The regressive logic of temporal estrangement ................................................. 170
Re-enactment and the regressive logic of southern nostalgia ........................... 174
Atlanta’s Buford Highway ................................................................................ 181
Chapter Four: Nostalgia and Utopianism in Contemporary Southern Food Cookbooks
........................................................................................................................ 195
“Telling a better—telling a fuller story” ........................................................... 142
Starters ............................................................................................................... 200
Cookbooks as performance ............................................................................... 208
Culinary mimesis and cooking by feel .............................................................. 211
Appetizers: archiving loss ................................................................................. 218
Grains: continuity versus discontinuity ............................................................. 221
Drinks: substitution and surrogation ................................................................. 227
Meats: hunting, experience, and the South outside the South ........................... 230
Preserves: celebrating and reinventing southern culture ................................... 238
In Defense of the City of Pigs: Some Conclusions .................................................... 244
The city of pigs .................................................................................................. 250
Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 249
v
List of Tables

Figure 1: “Road map” to Acharnians. .......................................................................... 97

Figure 2: Booker Wright. Still from Mississippi: A Self Portrait (1966). .................. 164

Figure 3: Mama Blue serves shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ............ 172

Figure 4: Grandma Blue serves shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ........ 172

Figure 5: Mama Blue is served shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ........ 180

Figure 6: Signs on Buford Highway, Atlanta Georgia (2010). .................................. 182

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Acknowledgements
In San Diego, a brand called “No Bad Days” emblazons its slogan across tire
covers, back windshields, and baseball caps. I have taken this message, outlined by
two curving palm trees, much to heart. This dissertation could not exist without the
love, friendship, and support of my exceptional friends and colleagues. I submit this
dissertation in a spirit of deep gratitude to those who push, nurture, and laugh with me.
I would like to thank my incredible colleagues and friends in the Department
of Theatre and Dance. My lone cohort, Julie Burelle, has been not only an incisive
editor but also an unwavering defender of my work and ideas even before I was.
Heather Ramey has routinely encouraged me to dream, live, and dissertate outside the
box. Sonia Fernandez has been an indispensable source of good sense and most
importantly good fun. Janet Hayatshahi invited me to join her onstage after I was the
only incoming student to answer “no” to the orientation-week question “are you an
artist?” My answer has changed. Of course, my brilliant, funny, challenging, talented,
and supportive colleagues and collaborators have truly made every day a joy. In
particular, I can’t wait to high-five Naysan Mojgani, Melissa Minnifee, and Nadeen
Kharputly when this is all done.
Amy Evans at the Southern Foodways Alliance made the last two chapters
possible. She deserves to be thanked over a microphone in a large and full auditorium.
The Southern Foodways Alliance is an invaluable academic resource for the serious
and passionate study of southern foodways. It is also comprised of some very sharp,
generous, and kind women. The dissertation that follows would be very different
without several late nights on the balcony of City Grocery. Thank you to Emilie
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Dayan Hill for hosting me and the University of Mississippi and UCSD’s Department
of Theatre and Dance for financially supporting my time there. I would also like to
thank the generous and passionate chefs and authors who agreed to be interviewed for
this project. They are truly organic philosophers.
I feel very fortunate to work with such a dissertation committee. Their
suggestions on the content and structure of this manuscript have improved it greatly.
Most importantly, their faith that a non-traditional project of this nature could come
together was very dear to me. I am particularly grateful to my dissertation co-chair,
Page duBois, for her mentorship. If I never acquire her preternatural calm and ability
to ask radical, far-reaching questions, I will at least attempt to dress the part.
Thank you to Jim Carmody for being so giving of his scarce free time to
comfort and encourage me. Thank you also to Rachel Lubich for providing structured
play and stretching my mind, patience, and muscles. The practice of yoga must be
partly to blame for this effusive show of gratitude and is certainly to thank for many of
the ideas contained in this dissertation. And thank you to Tara Knight and Janet Smarr
for the classes taught together: those hours were the highlight of my week.
Of course, I am very grateful to my parents for encouraging me to pack up two
suitcases, move across the country and pursue a graduate degree in theatre. I love them
both. Lastly, my sincerest thanks go to Kedar Kulkarni. He has been a colleague,
gadfly, proofreader, friend, inspiration and pillar of support for me these last few
years. The journey from the beginning to end of graduate school has been one, above
all else, of intense personal development. I’ve spent the bulk of my twenties at UCSD
and I think Kenneth Koch got it right:
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You never, ever, were stingy. What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how to best use it
You weren't a genius at that.

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