From the furious feasting of Federico Fellini’s Satyricon through the Judeo-Christian tale of a “forbidden fruit,” poison in Verona, and love, sex, and hunger in the streets of Tangiers and Havana, this course will explore the relationship—often fatal—between food and love, and food and sex; and the experience of hunger both as the physical unavailability of food, as well as the unfulfilled desire to love and be loved. As such, our readings will take into consideration the relationship between sex, food, and feasting, as well as the economic and socio-cultural circumstances that allow for the replacement of food with sex and/or love and vice versa. Throughout the course, we will be challenged to link concepts such as “desire” with dwindling economic conditions, and “hunger” with exile and sexual repression and/or deprivation, ultimately allowing us to expand on and question our understanding of food as sustenance and love as food’s only source.
Required Texts
Excerpt from William Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet (PDF)
Laura Esquivel. Like Water for Chocolate (Doubleday, 1992)
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory (Vintage Books, 1995)
Zoe Valdés. Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada: A Novel of Cuba (available as reader)
Mohamed Choukri. For Bread Alone.
Selected poetry from John Keats, Lord Byron and Carlos Jesús Enríquez (will be available on PDF)
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and Expulsion from the Garden (King James Bible, Genesis, Chapter III will be available as a handout)
Excerpt from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (will be available as PDF)
Required Films
*depending on availability, the films will be on reserve at YRL.
Federico Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) (only clips)
Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain (2007)
Recommended Viewing
Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Ang Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994)
