Journal articles: 'Virginia Eau' – Grafiati (2024)

Abstract:

That's all you heard, everywhere we went, or whatever we done, “oh, he's one of those issues.” We couldn't work with white people, we couldn't be in schools with them, we couldn't associate with them, we couldn't eat [with them]. I think they came up with the slang word “free issue.” They had this hatred; they just had this ungodly hatred. They couldn't accept you as a human.At the prodding of Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia General Assembly in 1782 passed legislation that allowed slave owners to manumit their slaves by issuing slaves a copy of their emancipation papers and making them “free issues.” Nevertheless, in Amherst County, Virginia, the meaning of “free issue” evolved to connote something very different than it did at its inception for a small mountain community.

Abstract:

This brief note introduces the reproduction of medical content, authored by Doctor Paul E. Marik. Dr. Marik is Professor of Medicine and Chief of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia (USA). Dr. Marik is an extremely qualified and experienced professional. The reprinting of the material was authorized by Dr. Marik himself on 12/02/2020. This material is relevant in the Brazilian scenario due to standardized procedures for patients infected with the coronavirus. Only 1 of the 5 files kindly provided by the author, in PDF format, was selected and reproduced as received, without any editing. Due to the pandemic's long duration, the Journal editors (who are not medical doctors) have already had the opportunity to monitor the development of the disease in more than one infected person. The type of treatment offered to patients seems to influence the course, duration, and severity of the disease. The treatments described in the materials below appear to be effective and have good results. The editors will refrain from making additional comments on the proposed methods not to influence anyone, restricting themselves to suggesting that they be discussed with the reader's trusted doctor in case of need or doubts. Complete, updated information and also translated into Portuguese are available at . We are grateful to Dr. Marik for his kindness in giving us his time in this troubled period.

Abstract:

AbstractIn 2015, winter wheat growers in Virginia reported commercial failures of thifensulfuron to control mouse-ear cress. This was the first reported case of field-evolved acetolactate synthase (ALS) resistance in mouse-ear cress, so research was conducted to evaluate alternative herbicide options as well as to document potential yield loss in winter wheat from mouse-ear cress. Efficacy studies were conducted at three site-years in 2015 to 2016 and 2016 to 2017 as well as a POST greenhouse trial. In the PRE study, flumioxazin, pyroxasulfone, saflufenacil, and metribuzin resulted in more than 80% mouse-ear cress control 15 wk after planting across all sites with no observable wheat injury. No differences were observed in wheat yield in two of three sites in the PRE herbicide study; yield differences were attributed to common chickweed and not to mouse-ear cress. In the POST herbicide study, 2,4-D, dicamba, and metribuzin resulted in greater than 75% control in the field and greenhouse. Metribuzin, dicamba, and pyroxsulam resulted in crop injury 3 wk after treatment at some sites, but injury was transient. Yield from all POST treatments was similar to the nontreated plots. No yield loss was observed by mouse-ear cress densities greater than 300 plants m–2, indicating that mouse-ear cress is not very competitive with winter wheat. Growers should make herbicide decisions based on other weeds in the field and can incorporate the aforementioned herbicides for mouse-ear cress control.

Abstract:

Abstract Both Spathius agrili Yang and Spathius galinae Belokobylskij and Strazanac are host-specific parasitic wasps introduced for biological control of emerald ash borer in North America. Spathius agrili is native to northeastern China and S. galinae comes from a more northern, colder climate in the Russian Far East. Their origin may lead to differing abilities to adapt to climate and their host in North America. We conducted both field and laboratory experiments to determine the timing of early season emergence and synchronization of each parasitoid species to their host in the United States, and if manipulating prerelease conditions could affect emergence time. A cold acclimatization treatment prior to parasitoid emergence was assessed and compared with untreated control group reared with standard rearing protocols. Stands of naturally emerald ash borer-infested ash were sampled at two locations in Virginia throughout the experiment to determine when the parasitoid-susceptible life stage (third to fourth instar) occurred. Untreated S. galinae emerged approximately 2 wk earlier than any other cohort, whereas cold acclimatized S. galinae emerged later than any other cohort. Emergence time of S. agrili was unaffected by cold acclimatization. Cold acclimatization treatment did not affect the parasitism rate of either species, nor did it have multigenerational effects. Emergence time of the subsequent generation of S. agrili was delayed by cold acclimatization treatment, whereas S. galinae experienced no multigenerational effects. At Virginia field sites, susceptible EAB larvae were present during the emergence time of all four groups of parasitoids. Untreated S. galinae had the least overlap with any susceptible EAB larvae.

Abstract:

Reservoir to multiple species of zoonotic pathogens, free-roaming cats (FRCs) interact with domestic and wild animals, vectors, and humans. To assess the potential for feline vector-borne pathogens to be vertically transmitted, this study surveyed ear tip and reproductive tissues of FRCs from two locations in the South Atlantic United States for Anaplasma, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, hemotropic Mycoplasma, and Rickettsia species. We collected ovary (n = 72), uterus (n = 54), testicl* (n = 74), and ear tip (n = 73) tissue from 73 cats, and fetal (n = 20) and placental (n = 19) tissue from 11 queens. Pathogen DNA was amplified utilizing qPCR, confirmed by sequencing. Cats were more frequently Bartonella henselae positive on reproductive tissues (19%, 14/73) than ear tip (5%, 4/73; p = 0.02). B. henselae was amplified from fetus (20%, 4/20) and placenta samples (11%, 2/19). Bartonella spp. infection was more common in cats from North Carolina (76%, 26/34) than Virginia (13%, 5/39; p < 0.0001). Fourteen percent (10/73) of both ear tip and reproductive tissues were positive for hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and Rickettsia spp. DNA was not amplified from any cat/tissue. These findings suggest that B. henselae preferentially infected cats’ reproductive tissue and reinforces the importance of investigating the potential for B. henselae vertical transmission or induction of reproductive failure.

Abstract:

Alternative to the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers can be the utilization of a natural organic source of on-farm animal manure nutrients for the growth, development and production of agricultural crops. The main objective of this research was to compost the poultry manure with organic amendments and utilize for sweet corn production. The composition of composted and uncomposted poultry manure was compared and field experiments were conducted during 2002 and 2004 at Randolph farm of Virginia State Univ. located near Petersburg, Virginia. The field experiments included seven treatments: control with un-composted manure, four treatments with manure (composted with wheat straw turned weekly, composted with wheat straw turned bi-weekly, composted with clover hay turned weekly, and composted with clover hay turned bi-weekly), recommended rate of N fertilizer, and a control without any treatment. Results indicated that composting of poultry manure with an organic amendment such as wheat straw or clover hay helps poultry manure's transformation into a usable fertilizer material for supporting crop production. However, use of clover hay was observed to be desirable than wheat straw for sweet corn production. Addition of clover hay resulted in significantly increased ear fresh and dry weight and also resulted in taller plants. The affects of biweekly vs. weekly turning compost on performance of sweet corn were not significant.

Abstract:

Abstract We assessed the effects of cub age, litter size, and sex, on body mass (BM), absolute and relative growth rates (AGR, RGR), opening of ears and eyes, and deciduous teeth eruption from 129 cubs of American black bears (Ursus americanus) born at Virginia Tech’s Black Bear Research Center. Specific ages, related to maternal food consumption, and litter size, best described BM, AGR, RGR, and ear and eye development. Overall, newborns weighed ~0.44 kg at birth and increased ~9-fold by ~14 weeks. Twins were greater in BM than single cubs and triplets. Single and triplet cubs had higher AGR and RGR than twins after mothers resumed food consumption post-hibernation. Newborns displayed RGR &gt; 3.5% that decreased until den emergence (RGR &lt; 3.5% after emergence). RGR differed among litter sizes, particularly after den emergence. Ear and eye opening occurred concurrently at ~44 days of age, while teeth erupted ~10 days later. Single cubs experienced delayed development of these organs compared to other litter sizes. Postnatal developmental differences between black bears and other carnivores likely stem from strategies allowing black bears to minimize energy expenditure during the gestational period when hibernating.

Abstract:

A large outbreak of acute gastroenteritis occurred among three different groups of guests and the employees of a Virginia hotel within a 2-week period in November 2000. At least 76 of the hotel's guests and 40 hotel employees had acute gastroenteritis during this period. All tested ill persons were infected with the same strain of Norwalk-like virus, as shown by cloning and sequencing of virus detected in stool specimens from the three guest groups and the employees. Epidemiologic investigation suggested food as the probable source for the guests. Most of the employees, including those sick, did not eat in the hotel, suggesting that environmental contamination and person-to-person transmission could have contributed to the outbreak. The disease continued to spread in the hotel, passing from one guest group to another, by food, environmental contamination, and/or by person-to-person transmission through infected employees and guests. The study describes procedures implemented to control the outbreak and makes recommendations for future outbreak control.

Abstract:

In order to improve the safety of refrigerated ready-to-eat food products prepared at retail deli departments, a better understanding of current practices in these establishments is needed. Food employees in deli departments at six chain and three independent retail establishments in Maryland and Virginia were observed, using notational analysis, as they prepared deli products for sale. The frequency of contact with objects and deli products before sale, hand washing and glove changing during preparation, and equipment, utensil, and surface cleaning and sanitizing was determined. Compliance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2005 model Food Code recommendations, which must be adopted by the individual state and local jurisdictions that are responsible for directly regulating retail establishments, was also assessed. Observations indicated there were a large number of actions for which hand washing was recommended at independent and chain stores (273 recommended of 1,098 total actions and 439 recommended of 3,073 total actions, respectively). Moreover, 67% (295 of 439) of the actions for which hand washing was recommended at the chain stores and 86% (235 of 273) of those at the independent stores resulted from employees touching non–food contact surfaces prior to handling ready-to-eat food. Compliance with hand washing recommendations was generally low and varied depending on store type with independent stores exhibiting lower compliance than chain stores (5 instances of compliance for 273 recommended actions and 73 instances of compliance for 439 recommended actions, respectively). Potential risk mitigation measures that may reduce the frequency of hand washing actions needed during ready-to-eat food preparation in retail deli departments are discussed. More research is needed to determine the impact of such measures on food safety.

Abstract:

Abstract Objectives This research, conducted in rural under served southwest Virginia, determined outcomes for the Healthy People 2020 Nutrition and Weight Status Objective to assess implementation of provider nutrition education in office visits to promote nutrition as a component of routine preventive medicine. Methods The authors' prior research, clinical experiences, familiarity with the region, along with agency reports identified the collaborating clinic as representative of the health disparity region characterized by high childhood obesity rates. Researchers distributed a 14 item survey to participants consenting to an IRB approved protocol, responding anonymously to the paper survey by depositing their completed form in a locked box. Results Participants (n = 384; 80% providing valid responses) were parents or guardians of children 2 to 18 years of age visiting a local pediatrician's office. All responded to have medical insurance, 98% were the primary caregiver of the child and 74% received government aid. Most (77%) caregivers “find fun and interesting way to introduce new foods”. Most (79%) caregivers agreed their child “likes to eat fruits and vegetables”. Caregivers disagreed (84%) to, “A healthy child is a fat child.” Responses by caregivers to, “How often does your provider discuss nutrition topics with you?” were very often (25%); sometimes (32%); occasionally (33%); and never (11%). Responses to, ‘How often would you like your provider to discuss these topics with you?’ were very often (19%); sometimes (30%); occasionally (43%); and never (7%). There was little to no correlation to age of the child on how caregivers responded to “…does your provider discuss nutrition topics with you”? (r = 0.14) and “…would you like your provider to discuss these topics with you?” (r = 0.12). Correlations indicated little to no relationship to children's ages. Conclusions Caregivers in a southwest Virginia clinic reported receiving nutrition education services at a rate exceeding Healthy People 2020 goals and recognized healthy nutrition guidelines. Our findings are consistent with our previous studies, confirming future interventions should target translation of caregivers’ knowledge to children's behaviors to ultimately improve healthy childhood development. This study was sponsored by a Paul Scholarship Program Award, Rachel Horn Mullins OMSIV. Funding Sources N/A.

Abstract:

Winter legume cover crops have been successfully used to meet N needs of many summer crops, but they are not being used extensively in Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region, especially for specialty crops such as muskmelon and sweet corn. The objective of these studies was to determine the potential of winter legume cover crops in meeting N needs of muskmelon (Cucumis melo L.) and sweet corn (Zea mays L.). Comparisons of performances of muskmelon and sweet corn, grown after lupin (Lupinus albus L.), hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth.), Austrian winter pea ([AWP] Pisum arvense L.), and control fertilized with 112 kg N ha–1, and unfertilized control were made during 1999, 2000, and 2001. The interactions between cover crop treatments and years were, generally, significant. The muskmelon fruit yields were 53.6, 45.0, 23.1, 13.0, and 5.6 Mg·ha–1 during 1999; 27.8, 26.3, 8.6, 5.8, and 2.2 Mg·ha–1 during 2000; and 41.1, 39.9, 25.5, 21.4, and 2.1 Mg·ha–1 during 2001 respectively for lupin, hairy vetch, AWP, 112 kg N ha–1, and control. Similar results were obtained for number and size of muskmelon fruits. The sweet corn ear yields (Mg·ha–1) were 8.5, 5.6, 3.1, 1.5, and 0.7 during 1999; 5.2, 3.9, 4.0, 4.8, and 1.2 during 2000; and 2.6, 2.4, 1.9, 2.0, and 0.9 during 2001, respectively for lupin, hairy vetch, AWP, 112 kg N ha–1, and control. White lupin and hairy vetch, as winter cover crops, were superior than AWP and 112 kg N ha–1 for sweet corn ear number and size, and plant height. These results demonstrated that winter legume crops, especially lupin and hairy vetch, can be excellent winter cover crops for meeting N needs of muskmelon and sweet corn.

Abstract:

Ruyan Neixiao Cream (RYNXC) is a traditional Chinese herbal formula for treating mammary precancerous disease. This study was carried out to investigate in vivo anticancer effect of RYNXC and multiple constituents. 32 virginal Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into blank control group (BC), mammary precancer models group (MODEL), tamoxifen group (TAM), and Ruyan Neixiao Cream group (RYNXC). TAM was intervened by tamoxifen; RYNXC was intervened by Ruyan Neixiao Cream. The chromatographic separation was performed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS). RYNXC showed significant improvement in erythrocyte aggregation index (EAI), hematocrit (HCT), fibrinogen (FIB), spleen coefficient, and uterus coefficient compared with MODEL. In RYNXC and TAM groups, atypical hyperplasia was observed in pathological mammary tissues; meanwhile in MODEL group, ductal carcinoma was observed in situ. Moreover, fifteen compounds were characterized according to HPLC-MS data, including organic acids, tannin, alkaloid, volatile oil, anthraquinones, and flavonoids. The study suggests that RYNXC was an effective Chinese herbal formula for mammary precancerous lesions and provides a scientific basis for the quality standard and the pharmacology of RYNXC. It will be beneficial to the future clinical application of RYNXC.

Abstract:

I was born and raised in the old mining town of Barrio DAS (Don Andres Soriano), Lutopan, Toledo City where Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. (ACMDC) is situated. Dad started his practice in the company’s hospital as an EENT specialist in the early 60’s and was the ‘go to’ EENT Doc not only of nearby towns or cities (including Cebu City) but also the surrounding provinces in the early 70’s. In my elementary years, he was Assistant Director of ACMDC Hospital (we lived just behind in company housing, only a 3-minute walk). I grew interested in what my dad did, sometimes staying in his clinic an hour or so after school, amazed at how efficiently he handled his patients who always felt so satisfied seeing him. At the end of the day, there was always ‘buyot’ (basket) of vegetables, live chickens, freshwater crabs, crayfish, catfish or tilapia. I wondered if he went marketing earlier, but knew he was too busy for that (and mom did that) until I noticed endless lines of patients outside and remembered when he would say: “Being a doctor here - you’ll never go hungry!” I later realized they were PFs (professional fees) of his patients. As a company doctor, Dad received a fixed salary, free housing, utilities, gasoline, schooling for kids and a company car. It was the perfect life! The company even sponsored his further training in Johns-Hopkins, Baltimore, USA. A family man, he loved us so much and was a bit of a joker too, especially at mealtimes. Dad’s daily routine was from 8 am – 5 pm and changed into his tennis, pelota, or badminton outfit. He was the athlete, winning trophies and medals in local sports matches. Dad wanted me to go to the University of the Philippines (UP) High School in the city. I thought a change of environment would be interesting, but I would miss my friends. Anyway, I complied and there I started to understand that my dad was not just an EENT practicing in the Mines but was teaching in Cebu Institute of Medicine and Cebu Doctors College of Medicine (CDCM) and was a consultant in most of the hospitals in Cebu City. And still he went back up to the mountains, back to Lutopan, our mining town where our home was. The old ACMDC hospital was replaced with a new state-of-the-art hospital now named ACMDC Medical Center, complete with Burn Unit, Trauma center and an observation deck in the OR for teaching interns from CDCM. Dad enjoyed teaching them. Most of them are consultants today who are so fond of my dad that they always send their regards when they see me. My dad loved making model airplanes, vehicles, etc. and I realized I had that skill when I was 8 years old and I made my first airplane model. He used to build them out of Balsa wood which is so skillful. I can’t be half the man he was but I realized this hobby enhanced his surgical skills. My dad was so diplomatic and just said to get an engineering course before you become a pilot (most of dads brothers are engineers). I actually gave engineering a go, but after 1 ½ years I realized I was not cut out for it. I actually loved Biology and anything dealing with life and with all the exposure to my dad’s clinic and hospital activities … med school it was! At this point, my dad was already President of the ORL Central Visayas Chapter and was head of ENT Products and Hearing Center. As a graduate of the UP College of Medicine who finished Otorhinolaryngology residency with an additional year in Ophthalmology as one of the last EENTs to finish in UP PGH in the late 50’s, he hinted that if I finished my medical schooling in CDCM that I consider Otorhinolaryngology as a residency program and that UP-PGH would be a good training center. I ended up inheriting the ORL practice of my dad mostly, who taught me some of Ophthalmology outpatient procedures. Dad showed me clinical and surgical techniques in ENT management especially how to deal with patients beyond being a doctor! You don’t learn this in books but from experience. I learned a lot from my dad. Just so lucky I guess! He actually designed and made his own ENT Treatment Unit, which I’m still using to this day (with some modifications of my own). And he created a certain electrically powered ‘eye magnet’ with the help of my cousin (who’s an engineer now in Chicago) which can attract metallic foreign bodies from within the eyeball to the surface so they can easily be picked out – it really works! Dad loved to travel in his younger years especially abroad for conventions or just simply leisure or vacations, most of the time with my mom. But as he was getting older, travels became uncomfortable. His last travel with me was in 2012 for the AAO-HNS Convention in Washington DC. It was a great time as we then proceeded to a US Navy Airshow in nearby Virginia after the convention, meeting up with my brother who is retired from the USN. Then we took the train to New York and stayed with my sister who is a PICU nurse in NY Presbyterian. Then off to Missouri and Ohio visiting the National Museum of the US Air Force, the largest military aircraft museum in the world. For years, Dad had been battling with heredofamilial-hypercholesterolemia problem which took its toll on his liver and made him weak and tired but still he practiced and continued teaching and sharing his knowledge until he retired at the age of 80. By then, my wife and I would take him and my mom out on weekends, he loved to be driven around and eat in different places. I really witnessed and have seen how he suffered from his illness in his final years. But he never showed it or complained, never even wanted to use a cane! He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. What most affected me was that my dad passed and I wasn’t even there. I had helped call for a physician to rush to the house and had oxygen cylinders to be brought for him as his end stage liver cirrhosis was causing cardio-pulmonary complications (non-COVID). Amidst all this I was the one admitted for 14 days because of COVID-19 pneumonia. My dad passed away peacefully at home as I was being discharged from the hospital. He was 88. I never reached him just to say good bye and cried when I reached home still dyspneic recovering from the viral pneumonia. I realized from my loved ones who told me that dad didn’t want me to stress out taking care of him, as I’ve been doing ever since, but instead to rest and recuperate myself. I cried again with that thought. In my view, he was not only a great Physician and Surgeon but also the greatest Dad. He lived a full life and touched so many lives with his treatments, charity services and teaching new physicians. It’s seeing, remembering and carrying on what he showed and taught us that really makes us miss him. I really love and miss my dad and with a smile on my face, I see he’s also happy to be with his brothers and sisters who passed on ahead. And that he’s rested. He is a man content, I remember he always said this, ‘ As long as I have a roof over my head and a bed to rest my back, I’m okay!”

Abstract:

Abstract Background In 2015, the Partnership for a Healthier America launched the branded Fruits & Veggies (FNV) Campaign to apply a unique industry-inspired marketing approach to promote fruit and vegetable sales and intake to moms and teens in two US pilot markets: Fresno, California and Hampton Roads, Virginia. The aims of this cross-sectional study were to: 1) assess brand awareness and fruit- and vegetable-related outcomes among FNV Campaign target audiences in the California and Virginia market locations; and 2) examine whether reported awareness of the FNV Campaign was associated with differences in fruit- and vegetable-related cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Methods Data for this cross-sectional study were collected using an online survey administered to a non-probability convenience sample (n = 1604; February–July 2017) of youth aged 14–20 years (n = 744) and moms aged 21–36 years (n = 860) in the two pilot markets. Descriptive statistics were computed and outcomes compared between unaware and aware respondents, controlling for sociodemographic covariates. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to assess whether fruit- and vegetable-related attitude, belief, and encouragement outcomes differed by FNV Campaign awareness; logistic regression was used to examine associations between FNV brand awareness and dichotomous variables (fruit- and vegetable-related behavioral intentions, trying new fruits and vegetables); and ANCOVA was used to assess associations with daily fruit and vegetable intake frequency. Results Approximately 20% (n = 315/1604) of respondents reported awareness of the FNV Campaign. Youth that reported awareness of the FNV Campaign (n = 167, 22.4%) had higher intentions to buy (p = 0.003) and eat (p = 0.009) fruits and vegetables than unaware respondents. Mothers that reported awareness of the FNV Campaign (n = 148, 17.2%) reported greater encouragement for friends and family to eat fruits and vegetables (p = 0.013) and were approximately 1.5 times more likely to report trying a new fruit or vegetable (p = 0.04) than mothers unaware of the Campaign. Daily fruit and vegetable intake frequency did not differ by Campaign awareness. Conclusions FNV Campaign awareness was associated with limited but positive short- and intermediate-term cognitive and behavioral outcomes among target audience respondents. These findings can inform future research to enhance understanding and improve the FNV Campaign as it is expanded to new markets nationwide.

Abstract:

Composición química y contenido de fenoles totales en aceites esenciales de muña Minthostachys setosa Briq Epl y anís Pimpinella anísum L. Chemical composition and total phenols of essential oils from muña Minthostachys setosa Briq EPL and anise Pimpinella anisum L. Guadalupe Chaquilla Quilca, Waldir D. Estela Escalante, Vinicio Torres Muñoz, María de Lourdes Ballinas Casarrubias, María Guadalupe Gastélum Franco, Gpe. Virginia Nevárez-Moorillón Universidad Nacional Micaela Bastidas de Apurímac, Facultad de Ingeniería, EAP Ing. Agroindustrial. Av. Arenas 121 Abancay, Apurímac Perú. Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Circuito Universitario s/n, Nuevo Campus Universitario 31125 Chihuahua, Chih. México. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33017/RevECIPeru2011.0031/ RESUMEN Se ha determinado la composición química y el contenido de fenoles totales de los aceites esenciales extraídos de la muña (Minthostachys setosa Briq Epl) y anís (Pimpinella anísum L.) provenientes de la región Apurímac, Perú. Los análisis de GC-MS han reportado para el caso de la muña la presencia de 18 diferentes compuestos volátiles entre ellos isomentona 39%, pulegona 32%, isopulegona 6% y timol 5% principalmente. En el caso del anís se encontró principalmente anetol, 96% y otros componentes en menor cantidad. El contenido de fenoles totales se ha determinado por el método de Folin Ciocalteu y expresados como mg de ácido gálico/g aceite esencial. Los resultados obtenidos reportaron valores de 253.65 mg y 73.50 mg de ácido gálico/g de aceite para muña y anís respectivamente. A partir de estos resultados el aceite esencial de muña presenta una mejor actividad antioxidante y podría ser utilizado como antioxidante natural en la elaboración de alimentos. Descriptores: actividad antioxidante, fenoles totales, anís, muña. ABSTRACT The chemical composition and the content of total phenols present in essential oils extracted from muña (Minthostachys setosa Briq Epl) and anise (Pimpinella anísum L.) collected in the Apurimac region, Perú were determined. Analyses of GC-MS of the essential oil of muña has reported the presence of about 18 different volatile compounds such as isomentona 39%, pulegona 32%, isomentona 6% and timol 5%, whereas in case of anise it has been detected mainly anetol 96% and other minor compounds. The content of total phenols in samples was determined by the method of Folin Ciocalteu and expressed as mg gálic acid/g essential oil. Results showed that the content of total phenols in muña and anise were 253.65 mg y 73.50 mg gálic acid/g oil respectively. From these results, the essential oil of muña shows a better antioxidant activity and it could be used as a natural antioxidant in food preparation. Keywords: antioxidant activity, total phenols, anise, muña.

Abstract:

“I’m fat–and it’s okay! It doesn’t mean I’m stupid, or ugly, or lazy, or selfish. I’m fat!” so proclaims Joy Nash in her YouTube video, A Fat Rant. “Fat! It’s three little letters–what are you afraid of?!” This is the question I pose to my class on day one of Fat Studies. Sadly, many college students do fear fat, and negative attitudes toward fat people are quite prevalent in this population (Ambwani et al. 366). As I teach it, Fat Studies is cross-listed between Psychology and Gender Studies. However, most students who enrol have majors in Psychology or other behavioural health science fields in which weight bias is particularly pronounced (Watkins and Concepcion 159). Upon finding stronger bias among third- versus first-year Physical Education students, O’Brien, Hunter, and Banks (308) speculated that the weight-centric curriculum that typifies this field actively engenders anti-fat attitudes. Based on their exploration of textbook content, McHugh and Kasardo (621) contend that Psychology too is complicit in propagating weight bias by espousing weight-centric messages throughout the curriculum. Such messages include the concepts that higher body weight invariably leads to poor health, weight control is simply a matter of individual choice, and dieting is an effective means of losing weight and improving health (Tylka et al.). These weight-centric tenets are, however, highly contested. For instance, there exists a body of research so vast that it has its own name, the “obesity paradox” literature. This literature (McAuley and Blair 773) entails studies that show that “obese” persons with chronic disease have relatively better survival rates and that a substantial portion of “overweight” and “obese” individuals have levels of metabolic health similar to or better than “normal” weight individuals (e.g., Flegal et al. 71). Finally, the “obesity paradox” literature includes studies showing that cardiovascular fitness is a far better predictor of mortality than weight. In other words, individuals may be both fit and fat, or conversely, unfit and thin (Barry et al. 382). In addition, Tylka et al. review literature attesting to the complex causes of weight status that extend beyond individual behaviour, ranging from genetic predispositions to sociocultural factors beyond personal control. Lastly, reviews of research on dieting interventions show that these are overwhelmingly ineffective in producing lasting weight loss or actual improvements in health and may in fact lead to disordered eating and other unanticipated adverse consequences (e.g., Bacon and Aphramor; Mann et al. 220; Salas e79; Tylka et al.).The newfound, interdisciplinary field of scholarship known as Fat Studies aims to debunk weight-centric misconceptions by elucidating findings that counter these mainstream suppositions. Health At Every Size® (HAES), a weight-neutral approach to holistic well-being, is an important facet of Fat Studies. The HAES paradigm advocates intuitive eating and pleasurable physical activity for health rather than restrictive dieting and regimented exercise for weight loss. HAES further encourages body acceptance of self and others regardless of size. Empirical evidence shows that HAES-based interventions improve physical and psychological health without harmful side-effects or high dropout rates associated with weight loss interventions (Bacon and Aphramor; Clifford et al. “Impact of Non-Diet Approaches” 143). HAES, like the broader field of Fat Studies, seeks to eradicate weight-based discrimination, positioning weight bias as a social justice issue that intersects with oppression based on other areas of difference such as gender, race, and social class. Much like Queer Studies, Fat Studies seeks to reclaim the word, fat, thus stripping it of its pejorative connotations. As Nash asserts in her video, “Fat is a descriptive physical characteristic. It’s not an insult, or an obscenity, or a death sentence!” As an academic discipline, Fat Studies is expanding its visibility and reach. The Fat Studies Reader, the primary source of reading for my course, provides a comprehensive overview of the field (Rothblum and Solovay 1). This interdisciplinary anthology addresses fat history and activism, fat as social inequality, fat in healthcare, and fat in popular culture. Ward (937) reviews this and other recently-released fat-friendly texts. The field features its own journal, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society, which publishes original research, overview articles, and reviews of assorted media. Both the Popular Culture Association and National Women’s Studies Association have special interest groups devoted to Fat Studies, and the American Psychological Association’s Division on the Psychology of Women has recently formed a task force on sizism (Bergen and Carrizales 22). Furthermore, Fat Studies conferences have been held in Australia and New Zealand, and the third annual Weight Stigma Conference will occur in Iceland, September 2015. Although the latter conference is not necessarily limited to those who align themselves with Fat Studies, keynote speakers include Ragen Chastain, a well-known member of the fat acceptance movement largely via her blog, Dances with Fat. The theme of this year’s conference, “Institutionalised Weightism: How to Challenge Oppressive Systems,” is consistent with Fat Studies precepts:This year’s theme focuses on the larger social hierarchies that favour thinness and reject fatness within western culture and how these systems have dictated the framing of fatness within the media, medicine, academia and our own identities. What can be done to oppose systemised oppression? What can be learned from the fight for social justice and equality within other arenas? Can research and activism be united to challenge prevailing ideas about fat bodies?Concomitantly, Fat Studies courses have begun to appear on college campuses. Watkins, Farrell, and Doyle-Hugmeyer (180) identified and described four Fat Studies and two HAES courses that were being taught in the U.S. and abroad as of 2012. Since then, a Fat Studies course has been taught online at West Virginia University and another will soon be offered at Washington State University. Additionally, a new HAES class has been taught at Saint Mary’s College of California during the last two academic years. Cameron (“Toward a Fat Pedagogy” 28) describes ways in which nearly 30 instructors from five different countries have incorporated fat studies pedagogy into university courses across an array of academic areas. This growing trend is manifested in The Fat Pedagogy Reader (Russell and Cameron) due out later this year. In this article, I describe content and pedagogical strategies that I use in my Fat Studies course. I then share students’ qualitative reactions, drawing upon excerpts from written assignments. During the term reported here, the class was comprised of 17 undergraduate and 5 graduate students. Undergraduate majors included 47% in Psychology, 24% in Women Studies, 24% in various other College of Liberal Arts fields, and 6% in the College of Public Health. Graduate majors included 40% in the College of Public Health and 60% in the College of Education. Following submission of final grades, students provided consent via email allowing written responses on assignments to be anonymously incorporated into research reports. Assignments drawn upon for this report include weekly reading reactions to specific journal articles in which students were to summarise the main points, identify and discuss a specific quote or passage that stood out to them, and consider and discuss applicability of the information in the article. This report also utilises responses to a final assignment in which students were to articulate take-home lessons from the course.Despite the catalogue description, many students enter Fat Studies with a misunderstanding of what the course entails. Some admitted that they thought the course was about reducing obesity and the presumed health risks associated with this alleged pathological condition (Watkins). Others understood, but were somewhat dubious, at least at the outset, “Before I began this class, I admit that I was skeptical of what Fat Studies meant.” Another student experienced “a severe cognitive dissonance” between the Fat Studies curriculum and that of a previous behavioural health class:My professor spent the entire quarter spouting off statistics, such as the next generation of children will be the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than their parents and the ever increasing obesity rates that are putting such a tax on our health care system, and I took her words to heart. I was scared for myself and for the populations I would soon be working with. I was worried that I was destined to a chronic disease and bothered that my BMI was two points above ‘normal.’ I believed everything my professor alluded to on the danger of obesity because it was things I had heard in the media and was led to believe all my life.Yet another related, “At first, I will be honest, it was hard for me to accept a lot of this information, but throughout the term every class changed my mind about my view of fat people.” A few students have voiced even greater initial resistance. During a past term, one student lamented that the material represented an attack on her intended behavioural health profession. Cameron (“Learning to Teach Everybody”) describes comparable reactions among students in her Critical Obesity course taught within a behavioural health science unit. Ward (937) attests that, even in Gender Studies, fat is the topic that creates the most controversy. Similarly, she describes students’ immense discomfort when asked to entertain perspectives that challenge deeply engrained ideas inculcated by our culture’s “obesity epidemic.” Discomfort, however, is not necessarily antithetical to learning. In prompting students to unlearn “the biomedically-informed truth of obesity, namely that fat people are unfit, unhealthy, and in need of ‘saving’ through expert interventions,” Moola at al. recommend equipping them with an “ethics of discomfort” (217). No easy task, “It requires courage to ask our students to forgo the security of prescriptive health messaging in favour of confusion and uncertainty” (221). I encourage students to entertain conflicting perspectives by assigning empirically-based articles emanating from peer-reviewed journals in their own disciplines that challenge mainstream discourses on obesity (e.g., Aphramor; Bombak e60; Tomiyama, Ahlstrom, and Mann 861). Students whose training is steeped in the scientific method seem to appreciate having quantitative data at their disposal to convince themselves–and their peers and professors–that widely held weight-centric beliefs and practices may not be valid. One student remarked, “Since I have taken this course, I feel like I am prepared to discuss the fallacy of the weight-health relationship,” citing specific articles that would aid in the effort. Likewise, Cameron’s (“Learning to Teach Everybody”) students reported a need to read research reports in order to begin questioning long-held beliefs.In addition, I assign readings that provide students with the opportunity to hear the voices of fat people themselves, a cornerstone of Fat Studies. Besides chapters in The Fat Studies Reader authored by scholars and activists who identify as fat, I assign qualitative articles (e.g., Lewis et al.) and narrative reports (e.g., Pause 42) in which fat people describe their experiences with weight and weight bias. Additionally, I provide positive images of fat people via films and websites (Clifford et al. HAES®; Watkins; Watkins and Doyle-Hugmeyer 177) in order to counteract the preponderance of negative, dehumanising portrayals in popular media (e.g., Ata and Thompson 41). In response, a student stated:One of the biggest things I took away from this term was the confidence I found in fat women through films and stories. They had more confidence than I have seen in any tiny girl and owned the body they were given.I introduce “normal” weight allies as well, most especially Linda Bacon whose treatise on thin privilege tends to set the stage for viewing weight bias as a form of oppression (Bacon). One student observed, “It was a relief to be able to read and talk about weight oppression in a classroom setting for once.” Another appreciated that “The class did a great job at analysing fat as oppression and not like a secondhand oppression as I have seen in my past classes.” Typically, fat students were already aware of weight-based privilege and oppression, often painfully so. Thinner students, however, were often astonished by this concept, several describing Bacon’s article as “eye-opening.” In reaction, many vowed to act as allies:This class has really opened my eyes and prepared me to be an ally to fat people. It will be difficult for some time while I try to get others to understand my point of view on fat people but I believe once there are enough allies, people’s minds will really start changing and it will benefit everyone for the better.Pedagogically, I choose to share my own experiences as they relate to course content and encourage students, at least in their written assignments, to do the same. Other instructors refrain from this practice for fear of reinforcing traditional discourses or eliciting detrimental reactions from students (Watkins, Farrell, and Doyle-Hugmeyer 191). Nevertheless, this tack seems to work well in my course, with many students opting to disclose their relevant circ*mstances during classroom discussions: Throughout the term I very much valued and appreciated when classmates would share their experiences. I love listening and hearing to others experiences and I think that is a great way to understand the material and learn from one another.It really helped to read different articles and hear classmates discuss and share stories that I was able to relate to. The idea of hearing people talk about issues that I thought I was the only one who dealt with was so refreshing and enlightening.The structure of this class allowed me to learn how this information is applicable to my life and made it deeper than just memorising information.Thus far, across three terms, no student has described iatrogenic effects from this process. In fact, most attribute positive transformations to the class. These include enhanced body acceptance of self and others: This class decreased my fat phobia towards others and gave me a better understanding about the intersectionality of one’s weight. For example, I now feel that I no longer view my family in a fat phobic way and I also feel responsible for educating my brother and helping him develop a strong self-esteem regardless of his size.I never thought this class would change my life, almost save my life. Through studies shown in class and real life people following their dreams, it made my mind completely change about how I view my body and myself.I can only hope that in the future, I will be more forgiving, tolerant, and above all accepting of myself, much less others. Regardless of a person’s shape and size, we are all beautiful, and while I’m just beginning to understand this, it can only get better from here.Students also reported becoming more savvy consumers of weight-centric media messages as well as realigning their eating and exercise behaviour in accordance with HAES: I find myself disgusted at the television now, especially with the amount of diet ads, fitness club ads, and exercise equipment ads all aimed at making a ‘better you.’ I now know that I would never be better off with a SlimFast shake, P90X, or a Total Gym. I would be better off eating when I’m hungry, working out because it is fun, and still eating Thin Mints when I want to. Prior to this class, I would work out rigorously, running seven miles a day. Now I realise why at times I dreaded to work out, it was simply a mathematical system to burn the energy that I had acquired earlier in the day. Instead what I realise I should do is something I enjoy, that way I will never get tired of whatever I am doing. While I do enjoy running, other activities would bring more joy while engaging in a healthy lifestyle like hiking or mountain biking.I will never go on another diet. I will stop choosing exercises I don’t love to do. I will not weigh myself every single day hoping for the number on the scale to change.A reduction in self-weighing was perhaps the most frequent behaviour change that students expressed. This is particularly valuable in that frequent self-weighing is associated with disordered eating and unhealthy weight control behaviours (Neumark-Sztainer et al. 811):I have realised that the number on the scale is simply a number on the scale. That number does not define who you are. I have stopped weighing myself every morning. I put the scale in the storage closet so I don’t have to look at it. I even encouraged my roommate to stop weighing herself too. What has been most beneficial for me to take away from this class is the notion that the number on the scale has so much less to do with fitness levels than most people understand. Coming from a numbers obsessed person like myself, this class has actually gotten me to leave the scales behind. I used to weigh myself every single day and my self-confidence reflected whether I was up or down in weight from the day before. It seems so silly to me now. From this class, I take away a new outlook on body diversity. I will evaluate who I am for what I do and not represent myself with a number. I’m going to have my cake this time, and actually eat it too!Finally, students described ways in which they might carry the concepts from Fat Studies into their future professions: I want to go to law school. This model is something I will work toward in the fight for social justice.As a teacher and teacher of teachers, I plan to incorporate discussions on size diversity and how this should be addressed within the field of adapted physical education.I do not know how I would have gone forward if I had never taken this class. I probably would have continued to use weight loss as an effective measure of success for both nutrition and physical activity interventions. I will never be able to think about the obesity prevention movement in the same way.Since I am working toward being a clinical psychologist, I don’t want to have a client who is pursuing weight loss and then blindly believe that they need to lose weight. I’d rather be of the mindset that every person is unique, and that there are other markers of health at every size.Jones and Hughes-Decatur (59) call for increased scholarship illustrating and evaluating critical body pedagogies so that teachers might provide students with tools to critique dominant discourses, helping them forge healthy relationships with their own bodies in the process. As such, this paper describes elements of a Fat Studies class that other instructors may choose to adopt. It additionally presents qualitative data suggesting that students came to think about fat and fat people in new and divergent ways. Qualitative responses also suggest that students developed better body image and more adaptive eating and exercise behaviours throughout the term. Although no students have yet described lasting adverse effects from the class, one stated that she would have preferred less of a focus on health and more of a focus on issues such as fat fashion. Indeed, some Fat Studies scholars (e.g., Lee) advocate separating discussions of weight bias from discussions of health status to avoid stigmatising fat people who do experience health problems. While concerns about fostering healthism within the fat acceptance movement are valid, as a behavioural health professional with an audience of students training in these fields, I have chosen to devote three weeks of our ten week term to this subject matter. Depending on their academic background, others who teach Fat Studies may choose to emphasise different aspects such as media representations or historical connotations of fat.Nevertheless, the preponderance of positive comments evidenced throughout students’ assignments may certainly be a function of social desirability. Although I explicitly invite critique, and in fact assign readings (e.g., Welsh 33) and present media that question HAES and Fat Studies concepts, students may still feel obliged to articulate acceptance of and transformations consistent with the principles of these movements. As a more objective assessment of student outcomes, I am currently conducting a quantitative evaluation, in which I remain blind to students’ identities, of this year’s Fat Studies course compared to other upper division/graduate Psychology courses, examining potential changes in weight bias, body image and dieting behaviour, adherence to appearance-related media messages, and obligatory exercise behaviour. I postulate results akin to those of Humphrey, Clifford, and Neyman Morris (143) who found reductions in weight bias, improved body image, and improved eating behaviour among college students as a function of their HAES course. As Fat Studies pedagogy proliferates, instructors are called upon to share their teaching strategies, document the effects, and communicate these results within and outside of academic spheres.ReferencesAmbwani, Suman, Katherine M. Thomas, Christopher J. Hopwood, Sara A. Moss, and Carlos M. Grilo. “Obesity Stigmatization as the Status Quo: Structural Considerations and Prevalence among Young Adults in the U.S.” Eating Behaviors 15.3 (2014): 366-370. Aphramor, Lucy. “Validity of Claims Made in Weight Management Research: A Narrative Review of Dietetic Articles.” Nutrition Journal 9 (2010): n. pag. 15 May 2015 ‹http://www.nutritionj.com/content/9/1/30›.Ata, Rheanna M., and J. Kevin Thompson. “Weight Bias in the Media: A Review of Recent Research.” Obesity Facts 3.1 (2010): 41-46.Bacon, Linda. “Reflections on Fat Acceptance: Lessons Learned from Thin Privilege.” 2009. 23 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.lindabacon.org/Bacon_ThinPrivilege080109.pdf›.Bacon, Linda, and Lucy Aphramor. “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift.” Nutrition Journal 10 (2011). 23 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9›.Barry, Vaughn W., Meghan Baruth, Michael W. Beets, J. Larry Durstine, Jihong Liu, and Steven N. Blair. “Fitness vs. Fatness on All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases 56.4 (2014): 382-390.Bergen, Martha, and Sonia Carrizales. “New Task Force Focused on Size.” The Feminist Psychologist 42.1 (2015): 22.Bombak, Andrea. “Obesity, Health at Every Size, and Public Health Policy.” American Journal of Public Health 104.2 (2014): e60-e67.Cameron, Erin. “Learning to Teach Everybody: Exploring the Emergence of an ‘Obesity” Pedagogy’.” The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education. Eds. Erin Cameron and Connie Russell. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, in press.Cameron, Erin. “Toward a Fat Pedagogy: A Study of Pedagogical Approaches Aimed at Challenging Obesity Discourses in Post-Secondary Education.” Fat Studies 4.1 (2015): 28-45.Chastain, Ragen. Dances with Fat. 15 May 2015 ‹https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/blog/›.Clifford, Dawn, Amy Ozier, Joanna Bundros, Jeffrey Moore, Anna Kreiser, and Michele Neyman Morris. “Impact of Non-Diet Approaches on Attitudes, Behaviors, and Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review.” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 47.2 (2015): 143-155.Clifford, Dawn, Patti Lou Watkins, and Rebecca Y. Concepcion. “HAES® University: Bringing a Weight Neutral Message to Campus.” Association for Size Diversity and Health, 2015. 23 Apr. 2015 ‹https://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/content.asp?id=258›.Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. 23 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ufts20/current#.VShpqdhFDBC›.Flegal, Katherine M., Brian K. Kit, Heather Orpana, and Barry L. Graubard. “Association of All-Cause Mortality with Overweight and Obesity Using Standard Body Mass Index Categories: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Journal of the American Medical Association 309.1 (2013): 71-82.Humphrey, Lauren, Dawn Clifford, and Michelle Neyman Morris. “Health At Every Size College Course Reduces Dieting Behaviors and Improves Intuitive Eating, Body Esteem, and Anti-Fat Attitudes.” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, in press.Jones, Stephanie, and Hilary Hughes-Decatur. “Speaking of Bodies in Justice-Oriented Feminist Teacher Education.” Journal of Teacher Education 63.1 (2012): 51-61.Lee, Jenny. Embodying Stereotypes: Memoir, Fat and Health. Fat Studies: Reflective Intersections, July 2012, Wellington, NZ. Unpublished conference paper.Lewis, Sophie, Samantha L. Thomas, Jim Hyde, David Castle, R. Warwick Blood, and Paul A. Komesaroff. “’I Don't Eat a Hamburger and Large Chips Every Day!’ A Qualitative Study of the Impact of Public Health Messages about Obesity on Obese Adults.” BMC Public Health 10.309 (2010). 23 Apr 2015 ‹http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/309›.Mann, Traci, A. Janet Tomiyama, Erika Westling, Ann-Marie Lew, Barbara Samuels, and Jason Chatman. “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer.” American Psychologist 62.3 (2007): 220-233.McAuley, Paul A., and Steven N. Blair. “Obesity Paradoxes.” Journal of Sports Sciences 29.8 (2011): 773-782. McHugh, Maureen C., and Ashley E. Kasardo. “Anti-Fat Prejudice: The Role of Psychology in Explication, Education and Eradication.” Sex Roles 66.9-10 (2012): 617-627.Moola, Fiona J., Moss E. Norman, LeAnne Petherick, and Shaelyn Strachan. “Teaching across the Lines of Fault in Psychology and Sociology: Health, Obesity and Physical Activity in the Canadian Context.” Sociology of Sport Journal 31.2 (2014): 202-227.Nash, Joy. “A Fat Rant.” YouTube, 17 Mar. 2007. 23 Apr. 2015 ‹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQIBI1oA›.Neumark-Sztainer, Dianne, Patricia van den Berg, Peter J. Hannan, and Mary Story. “Self-Weighing in Adolescents: Helpful or Harmful? Longitudinal Associations with Body Weight Changes and Disordered Eating.” Journal of Adolescent Health 39.6 (2006): 811–818.O’Brien, K.S., J.A. Hunter, and M. Banks. “Implicit Anti-Fat Bias in Physical Educators: Physical Attributes, Ideology, and Socialization.” International Journal of Obesity 31.2 (2007): 308-314.Pause, Cat. “Live to Tell: Coming Out as Fat.” Somatechnics 2.1 (2012): 42-56.Rothblum, Esther, and Sondra Solovay, eds. The Fat Studies Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2009.Russell, Connie, and Erin Cameron, eds. The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, in press. Salas, Ximena Ramos. “The Ineffectiveness and Unintended Consequences of the Public Health War on Obesity.” Canadian Journal of Public Health 106.2 (2015): e79-e81. Tomiyama, A. Janet, Britt Ahlstrom, and Traci Mann. “Long-Term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 7.12 (2013): 861-877.Tylka, Tracy L., Rachel A. Annunziato, Deb Burgard, Sigrun Daníelsdóttir, Ellen Shuman, Chad Davis, and Rachel M. Calogero. “The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss.” Journal of Obesity (2014). 23 Apr. 2015 ‹http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2014/983495/›.Ward, Anna E. “The Future of Fat.” American Quarterly 65.4 (2013): 937-947.Watkins, Patti Lou. “Inclusion of Fat Studies in a Difference, Power, and Discrimination Curriculum.” The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education. Eds. Erin Cameron and Connie Russell. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, in press. Watkins, Patti Lou, and Rebecca Y. Concepcion. “Teaching HAES to Health Care Students and Professionals.” Wellness Not Weight: Motivational Interviewing and a Non-Diet Approach. Ed. Ellen Glovsky. San Diego: Cognella Academic Publishing, 2014: 159-169. Watkins, Patti Lou, and Andrea Doyle-Hugmeyer. “Teaching about Eating Disorders from a Fat Studies Perspective. Transformations 23.2 (2013): 147-158. Watkins, Patti Lou, Amy E. Farrell, and Andrea Doyle Hugmeyer. “Teaching Fat Studies: From Conception to Reception. Fat Studies 1.2 (2012): 180-194. Welsh, Taila L. “Healthism and the Bodies of Women: Pleasure and Discipline in the War against Obesity.” Journal of Feminist Scholarship 1 (2011): 33-48. Weight Stigma Conference. 23 Apr. 2015 ‹http://stigmaconference.com/›.

Abstract:

I am pleased to introduce the next issue of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. This issue includes revised papers from two key conferences in 2009: the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity (4APCEI, Wollongong University, Australia), and the Center for Academic Integrity Annual International Conference (Washington University, US), as well as two original papers. The issue is truly international, with authors representing the United States, the Ukraine and Australia. Daniel Wueste, Director of the Rutland Institute for Ethics, and Teddi Fishman, Director of the recently renamed International Center for Academic Integrity, provide a framing piece for the issue, with their paper from 4APCEI which explores the limitations of customer service approaches in higher education. Wueste and Fishman, while acknowledging the seductive appeal of likening students to "customers", particularly as part of the "total quality movement", provide a rigorous critique of this potentially dangerous discourse. The authors demonstrate how education differs quite significantly from commerce and argue that “looking to professional practice for help in understanding the educational enterprise holds considerably more promise than looking to business practice”. Wueste and Fishman are forthright in their assertion that education is based on a reciprocal relationship between teacher and learner (rather than a transaction between vendor and vendee), and that intrinsic to this relationship is a shared commitment to integrity. Following on from Wueste's and Fishman's call for a re-articulation of values in higher education, are two papers from the CAI conference. Joanna Gilmore, Denise Strickland, Briana Timmerman, Michelle Maher (all from the University of South Carolina) and David Feldon (University of Virginia), investigate plagiarism by graduate students. Working with a sample of 113 masters and doctoral students from three university sites, representing technology, engineering, mathematics, or mathematics or science education, the researchers examined students' research proposals and conducted semi-structured interviews. Their key finding was that while plagiarism was a prevalent issue (almost 40% of the proposals contained notable plagiarism), this appeared to be largely unintentional due to a lack of disciplinary enculturation. Notably, this lack of disciplinary enculturation was further compounded for English as a Second Language (ESL) students at the pre-proposal stage, who also had to grapple with cultural differences, English language issues and a variety of other factors. William Hanson from Anderson University in California uses grounded theory and graph theory based analysis to create a "faculty ethics logic model" based on his research at a small, religiously affiliated university. Hanson sought to operationalise participant realities of the primary forces that drive teaching or resolving ethics issues and discovered that informal elements, rather than formal institutional influence, played a major role in response strategies. In particular, faculty members used existing knowledge, resources/artefacts, goals and beliefs and their actions were shaped by work group influence and collective norms within a Christian framework. Hanson concluded that ethics policy “cannot be wholly forced upon its members… informal institutional principles originate from faculty” and that teachers "must be considered as primary change agents in ethics reform..." This research has important implications in the context of academic integrity, pointing as it does to the central, although often informal role of teachers in nurturing and promoting academic integrity on campus. Jason Stephens (University of Connecticut), Volodymyr Romakin (Petro Mohyla State University, Ukraine) and Mariya Yukhymenko (University of Connecticut) extend previous studies which have compared cheating behaviours of US undergraduate students with students from other cultures, by investigating academic motivation and misconduct by Ukrainian students. Based on a self-report survey with a sample of 189 students from each country, their study investigated the differences between US and Ukrainian students' task value, goal orientations, moral beliefs and cheating behaviours. Significant differences between the two groups were found, most notably that Ukrainian students reported lower judgements about the wrongfulness of cheating behaviours, and correspondingly higher levels of engagement in cheating behaviour. In particular, academic task value was a significant predictor of cheating beliefs and behaviours for the Ukrainian students: the more useful and interesting the course was perceived to be, the less likely the Ukrainian students were to cheat - a finding which has clear implications for all educators, but particularly those working with Ukrainian students. The final paper by Australian authors, Robert Kennelly, Anna Maldoni and Doug Davis (University of Canberra) provides appropriate closure to this issue. While Wueste and Fishman opened the issue by exhorting us to re-examine the value and purpose of higher education, Kennelly et al. do just that by reminding readers that educational integrity requires more than a pledge from students not to cheat. All stakeholders, from those at the highest administrative level, to those instructors teaching occasional tutorials, need to be deeply committed to the learning needs of the diverse classroom. International EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in Australian universities have long carried the burden associated with the customer service model of higher education critiqued by Wueste and Fishman. International EAL students pay high tuition fees, have additional expenses and responsibilities to fulfil English language requirements (in most Australian universities, a minimum International English Language Test Score (IELTS) of 6.00 for undergraduate entry), and in many instances, find at arrival that this IELTS score is inadequate for the level of oral and written communication required. Furthermore, with decreasing government funding and the demise of student unions, the level of on-campus services has gradually declined, so that students not only struggle with their academic load, they are often lonely and isolated. The discipline-based approach to academic and language development trialled, evaluated and recommended by Kennelly et al. goes some way to addressing the academic needs of this group of students. Using data from six consecutive semesters, the authors provide compelling evidence that team-taught, disciplined-based support programs have the potential to improve international EAL students' competence in academic and critical literacy skills, while simultaneously building English language proficiency. I trust you will enjoy this issue of the International Journal for Educational Integrity, and invite you to submit manuscripts for review for Volume 7(1), to be published in mid-2011. Volume 6(2) is being guest edited by Chris Moore and Ruth Walker, on the topic of 'digital technologies and educational integrity' and is due to be published in December this year. Tracey Bretag, IJEI Editor tracey.bretag@unisa.edu.au

Abstract:

In Victorian times, when female travel narratives were read as excursions rather than expeditions, it was common for women authors to preface their travels with an apology. “What this book wants,” begins Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, “is not a simple preface but an apology, and a very brilliant and convincing one at that” (4). This tendency of the woman writer to depreciate her travel with an acknowledgment of its presumptuousness crafted her apology essentially as an admission of guilt. “Where I have offered my opinions,” Isabella Bird writes in The Englishwoman in America, “I have done so with extreme diffidence, giving impressions rather than conclusions” (2). While Elizabeth Howells has since argued the apologetic preface was in fact an opposing strategy that allowed women writers to assert their authority by averting it, it is certainly telling of the time and genre that a female writer could only defend her work by first excusing it. The personal apology may have emerged as the natural response to social restrictions but it has not been without consequence for female travel. The female position, often constructed as communal, is still problematised in contemporary travel texts. While there has been a traceable shift from apology to affirmation since the first women travellers abandoned their embroidery, it seems some sense of lingering culpability still remains. In many ways, the modern female traveller, like the early lady traveller, is still a displaced woman. She still sets out cautiously, guide book in hand. Often she writes, like the female confessant, in an attempt to recover what Virginia Woolf calls “the lives of the obscure”: those found locked in old diaries, stuffed away in old drawers or simply unrecorded (44). Often she speaks insistently of the abstract things which Kingsley, ironically, wrote so easily and extensively about. She is, however, even when writing from within the confines of her own home, still writing from abroad. Women’s solitary or “unescorted” travel, even in contemporary times, is considered less common in the Western world, with recurrent travel warnings constantly targeted at female travellers. Travelling women are always made aware of the limits of their body and its vulnerabilities. Mary Morris comments on “the fear of rape, for example, whether crossing the Sahara or just crossing a city street at night” (xvii). While a certain degree of danger always exists in travel for men and women alike and while it is inevitable that some of those risks are gender-specific, travel is frequently viewed as far more hazardous for women. Guide books, travel magazines and online advice columns targeted especially at female readers are cramped with words of concern and caution for women travellers. Often, the implicit message that women are too weak and vulnerable to travel is packaged neatly into “a cache of valuable advice” with shocking anecdotes and officious chapters such as “Dealing with Officials”, “Choosing Companions” or “If You Become a Victim” (Swan and Laufer vii). As these warnings are usually levelled at white, middle to upper class women who have the freedom and financing to travel, the question arises as to what is really at risk when women take to the road. It seems the usual dialogue between issues of mobility and issues of safety can be read more complexly as confusions between questions of mobility and morality. As Kristi Siegel explains, “among the various subtexts embedded in these travel warnings is the long-held fear of ‘women on the loose’” (4). According to Karen Lawrence, travel has always entailed a “risky and rewardingly excessive” terrain for women because of the historical link between wandering and promiscuity (240). Paul Hyland has even suggested that the nature of travel itself is “gloriously” promiscuous: “the shifting destination, arrival again and again, the unknown possessed, the quest for an illusory home” (211). This construction of female travel as a desire to wander connotes straying behaviours that are often cast in sexual terms. The identification of these traits in early criminological research, such as 19th century studies of cacogenic families, is often linked to travel in a broad sense. According to Nicolas Hahn’s study, Too Dumb to Know Better, contributors to the image of the “bad” woman frequently cite three traits as characteristic. “First, they have pictured her as irresolute and all too easily lead. Second, they have usually shown her to be promiscuous and a good deal more lascivious than her virtuous sister. Third, they have often emphasised the bad woman’s responsibility for not only her own sins, but those of her mate and descendents as well” (3). Like Eve, who wanders around the edge of the garden, the promiscuous woman has long been said to have a wandering disposition. Interestingly, however, both male and female travel writers have at different times and for dissimilar reasons assumed hermaphroditic identities while travelling. The female traveller, for example, may assume the figure of “the observer” or “the reporter with historical and political awareness”, while the male traveller may feminise his behaviours to confront inevitabilities of confinement and mortality (Fortunati, Monticelli and Ascari 11). Female travellers such as Alexandra David-Neel and Isabelle Eberhardt who ventured out of the home and cross-dressed for safety or success, deliberately and fully appropriated traditional roles of the male sex. Often, this attempt by female wanderers to fulfil their own intentions in cognito evaded their dismissal as wild and unruly women and asserted their power over those duped by their disguise. Those women who did travel openly into the world were often accused of flaunting the gendered norms of female decorum with their “so-called unnatural and inappropriate behaviour” (Siegel 3). The continued harnessing of this cultural taboo by popular media continues to shape contemporary patterns of female travel. In fact, as a result of perceived connections between wandering and danger, the narrative of the woman traveller often emerges as a self-conscious fiction where “the persona who emerges on the page is as much a character as a woman in a novel” (Bassnett 234). This process of self-fictionalising converts the travel writing into a graph of subliminal fears and desires. In Tracks, for example, which is Robyn Davidson’s account of her solitary journey by camel across the Australian desert, Davidson shares with her readers the single, unvarying warning she received from the locals while preparing for her expedition. That was, if she ventured into the desert alone without a guide or male accompaniment, she would be attacked and raped by an Aboriginal man. In her opening pages, Davidson recounts a conversation in the local pub when one of the “kinder regulars” warns her: “You ought to be more careful, girl, you know you’ve been nominated by some of these blokes as the next town rape case” (19). “I felt really frightened for the first time,” Davidson confesses (20). Perhaps no tale better depicts this gendered troubling than the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood. In the earliest versions of the story, Little Red outwits the Wolf with her own cunning and escapes without harm. By the time the first printed version emerges, however, the story has dramatically changed. Little Red now falls for the guise of the Wolf, and tricked by her captor, is eaten without rescue or escape. Charles Perrault, who is credited with the original publication, explains the moral at the end of the tale, leaving no doubt to its intended meaning. “From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, and it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner” (77). Interestingly, in the Grimm Brothers’ version which emerges two centuries later an explicit warning now appears in the tale, in the shape of the mother’s instruction to “walk nicely and quietly, and not run off the path” (144). This new inclusion sanitises the tale and highlights the slippages between issues of mobility and morality. Where Little Red once set out with no instruction not to wander, she is now told plainly to stay on the path; not for her own safety but for implied matters of virtue. If Little Red strays while travelling alone she risks losing her virginity and, of course, her virtue (Siegel 55). Essentially, this is what is at stake when Little Red wanders; not that she will get lost in the woods and be unable to find her way, but that in straying from the path and purposefully disobeying her mother, she will no longer be “a dear little girl” (Grimm 144). In the Grimms’ version, Red Riding Hood herself critically reflects on her trespassing from the safe space of the village to the dangerous world of the forest and makes a concluding statement that demonstrates she has learnt her lesson. “As long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so” (149). Red’s message to her female readers is representative of the social world’s message to its women travellers. “We are easily distracted and disobedient, we are not safe alone in the woods (travelling off the beaten path); we are fairly stupid; we get ourselves into trouble; and we need to be rescued by a man” (Siegel 56). As Siegel explains, even Angela Carter’s Red Riding Hood, who bursts out laughing when the Wolf says “all the better to eat you with” for “she knew she was nobody’s meat” (219), still shocks readers when she uses her virginity to take power over the voracious Wolf. In Carter’s world “children do not stay young for long,” and Little Red, who has her knife and is “afraid of nothing”, is certainly no exception (215). Yet in the end, when Red seduces the Wolf and falls asleep between his paws, there is still a sense this is a twist ending. As Siegel explains, “even given the background Carter provides in the story’s beginning, the scene startles. We knew the girl was strong, independent, and armed. However, the pattern of woman-alone-travelling-alone-helpless-alone-victim is so embedded in our consciousness we are caught off guard” (57). In Roald Dahl’s revolting rhyme, Little Red is also awarded agency, not through sexual prerogative, but through the enactment of traits often considered synonymous with male bravado: quick thinking, wit and cunning. After the wolf devours Grandmamma, Red pulls a pistol from her underpants and shoots him dead. “The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers. She whips a pistol from her knickers. She aims it at the creature’s head and bang bang bang, she shoots him dead” (lines 48—51). In the weeks that follow Red’s triumph she even takes a trophy, substituting her red cloak for a “furry wolfskin coat” (line 57). While Dahl subverts female stereotypes through Red’s decisive action and immediacy, there is still a sense, perhaps heightened by the rhyming couplets, that we are not to take the shooting seriously. Instead, Red’s girrrl-power is an imagined celebration; it is something comical to be mused over, but its shock value lies in its impossibility; it is not at all believable. While the sexual overtones of the tale have become more explicit in contemporary film adaptations such as David Slade’s Hard Candy and Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, the question that arises is what is really at threat, or more specifically who is threatened, when women travel off the well-ordered path of duty. As this problematic continues to surface in discussions of the genre, other more nuanced readings have also distorted the purpose and practice of women’s travel. Some psychoanalytical theorists, for example, have adopted Freud’s notion of travel as an escape from the family, particularly the father figure. In his essay A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis, Freud explains how his own longing to travel was “a wish to escape from that pressure, like the force which drives so many adolescent children to run away from home” (237). “When one first catches sight of the sea,” Freud writes, “one feels oneself like a hero who has performed deeds of improbable greatness” (237). The inherent gender trouble with such a reading is the suggestion women only move in search of a quixotic male figure, “fleeing from their real or imaginary powerful fathers and searching for an idealised and imaginary ‘loving father’ instead” (Berger 55). This kind of thinking reduces the identities of modern women to fragile, unfinished selves, whose investment in travel is always linked to recovering or resisting a male self. Such readings neglect the unique history of women’s travel writing as they dismiss differences in the male and female practice and forget that “travel itself is a thoroughly gendered category” (Holland and Huggan 111). Freud’s experience of travel, for example, his description of feeling like a “hero” who has achieved “improbable greatness” is problematised by the female context, since the possibility arises that women may travel with different e/motions and, indeed, motives to their male counterparts. For example, often when a female character does leave home it is to escape an unhappy marriage, recover from a broken heart or search for new love. Elizabeth Gilbert’s best selling travelogue, Eat, Pray, Love (which spent 57 weeks at the number one spot of the New York Times), found its success on the premise of a once happily married woman who, reeling from a contentious divorce, takes off around the world “in search of everything” (1). Since its debut, the novel has been accused of being self-absorbed and sexist, and even branded by the New York Post as “narcissistic New Age reading, curated by Winfrey” (Callahan par 13). Perhaps most interesting for discussions of travel morality, however, is Bitch magazine’s recent article Eat, Pray, Spend, which suggests that the positioning of the memoir as “an Everywoman’s guide to whole, empowered living” typifies a new literature of privilege that excludes “all but the most fortunate among us from participating” (Sanders and Barnes-Brown par 7). Without seeking to limit the novel with separatist generalisations, the freedoms of Elizabeth Gilbert (a wealthy, white American novelist) to leave home and to write about her travels afterwards have not always been the freedoms of all women. As a result of this problematic, many contemporary women mark out alternative patterns of movement when travelling, often moving deliberately in a variety of directions and at varying paces, in an attempt to resist their placelessness in the travel genre and in the mappable world. As Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson, speaking of Housekeeping’s Ruthie and Sylvie, explains, “they do not travel ever westward in search of some frontier space, nor do they travel across great spaces. Rather, they circle, they drift, they wander” (199). As a result of this double displacement, women have to work twice as hard to be considered credible travellers, particularly since travel is traditionally a male discursive practice. In this tradition, the male is often constructed as the heroic explorer while the female is mapped as a place on his itinerary. She is a point of conquest, a land to be penetrated, a site to be mapped and plotted, but rarely a travelling equal. Annette Kolodny considers this metaphor of “land-as-woman” (67) in her seminal work, The Lay of the Land, in which she discusses “men’s impulse to alter, penetrate and conquer” unfamiliar space (87). Finally, it often emerges that even when female travel focuses specifically on an individual or collective female experience, it is still read in opposition to the long tradition of travelling men. In their introduction to Amazonian, Dea Birkett and Sara Wheeler maintain the primary difference between male and female travel writers is that “the male species” has not become extinct (vii). The pair, who have theorised widely on New Travel Writing, identify some of the myths and misconceptions of the female genre, often citing their own encounters with androcentrism in the industry. “We have found that even when people are confronted by a real, live woman travel writer, they still get us wrong. In the time allowed for questions after a lecture, we are regularly asked, ‘Was that before you sailed around the world or after?’ even though neither of us has ever done any such thing” (xvii). The obvious bias in such a comment is an archaic view of what qualifies as “good” travel and a preservation of the stereotypes surrounding women’s intentions in leaving home. As Birkett and Wheeler explain, “the inference here is that to qualify as travel writers women must achieve astonishing and record-breaking feats. Either that, or we’re trying to get our hands down some man’s trousers. One of us was once asked by the president of a distinguished geographical institution, ‘What made you go to Chile? Was it a guy?’” (xviii). In light of such comments, there remain traceable difficulties for contemporary female travel. As travel itself is inherently gendered, its practice has often been “defined by men according to the dictates of their experience” (Holland and Huggan 11). As a result, its discourse has traditionally reinforced male prerogatives to wander and female obligations to wait. Even the travel trade itself, an industry that often makes its profits out of preying on fear, continues to shape the way women move through the world. While the female traveller then may no longer preface her work with an explicit apology, there are still signs she is carrying some historical baggage. It is from this site of trouble that new patterns of female travel will continue to emerge, distinguishably and defiantly, towards a much more colourful vista of general misrule. References Bassnett, Susan. “Travel Writing and Gender.” The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, eds. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 225-40. Berger, Arthur Asa. Deconstructing Travel: Cultural Perspectives on Tourism. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004. Bird, Isabella. The Englishwoman in America. London: John Murray, 1856. Birkett, Dea, and Sara Wheeler, eds. Amazonian: The Penguin Book of New Women’s Travel Writing. London: Penguin, 1998. Callahan, Maureen. “Eat, Pray, Loathe: Latest Self-Help Bestseller Proves Faith is Blind.” New York Post 23 Dec. 2007. Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories. London: Vintage, 1995. 212-20. Dahl, Roald. Revolting Rhymes. London: Puffin Books, 1982. Davidson, Robyn. Tracks. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. Fortunati, Vita, Rita Monticelli, and Maurizio Ascari, eds. Travel Writing and the Female Imaginary. Bologna: Patron Editore, 2001. Freud, Sigmund. “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XXII. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Other Works, 1936. 237-48. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. New Jersey: Penguin, 2007. Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Red Riding Hood.” Grimms’ Fairy Tales, London: Jonathan Cape, 1962. 144-9. Hahn, Nicolas. “Too Dumb to Know Better: Cacogenic Family Studies and the Criminology of Women.” Criminology 18.1 (1980): 3-25. Hard Candy. Dir. David Slade. Lionsgate. 2005. Holland, Patrick, and Graham Huggan. Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2003. Howells, Elizabeth. “Apologizing for Authority: The Rhetoric of the Prefaces of Eliza Cook, Isabelle Bird, and Hannah More.” Professing Rhetoric: Selected Papers from the 2000 Rhetoric Society of America Conference, eds. F.J. Antczak, C. Coggins, and G.D. Klinger. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. 131-7. Hyland, Paul. The Black Heart: A Voyage into Central Africa. New York: Paragon House, 1988. Kingsley, Mary. Travels in West Africa. Middlesex: The Echo Library, 2008. Kolodny, Annette. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. USA: U of North Carolina P, 1975. Lawrence, Karen. Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994. Morris, Mary. Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travellers. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Perrault, Charles. Perrault’s Complete Fairytales. Trans. A.E. Johnson and others. London: Constable & Company, 1961. Red Riding Hood. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Warner Bros. 2011. Sanders, Joshunda, and Diana Barnes-Brown. “Eat, Pray, Spend: Priv-Lit and the New, Enlightened American Dream” Bitch Magazine 47 (2010). 10 May, 2011 < http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend >. Siegel, Kristi. Ed. Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. Slettedahl Macpherson, Heidi. “Women’s Travel Writing and the Politics of Location: Somewhere In-Between.” Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing, ed. Kristi Siegel. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. 194-207. Swan, Sheila, and Peter Laufer. Safety and Security for Women who Travel. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2004. Woolf, Virginia. Women and Writing. London: The Women’s Press, 1979.

Abstract:

Introduction Special occasion cookery has been a staple of the cookbook writing in the English speaking Western world for decades. This includes providing catering for personal milestones as well as religious and secular festivals. Yet, in an era when the culinary publishing sector is undergoing considerable expansion and market segmentation, narratives of foods marking of one of life’s central and inescapable rites—death—are extremely rare. This discussion investigates examples of food writing related to death and funeral rites in contemporary cookbooks. Funeral feasts held in honour of the dead date back beyond recorded history (Luby and Gruber), and religious, ceremonial and community group meals as a component of funeral rites are now ubiquitous around the world. In earlier times, the dead were believed to derive both pleasure and advantage from these offerings (LeClercq), and contemporary practice still reflects this to some extent, with foods favoured by the deceased sometimes included in such meals (see, for instance, Varidel). In the past, offering some sustenance as a component of a funeral was often necessary, as mourners might have travelled considerable distances to attend the ceremony, and eateries outside the home were not as commonplace or convenient to access as they are today. The abundance and/or lavishness of the foods provided may also have reflected the high esteem in which the dead was held, and offered as a mark of community respect (Smith and Bird). Following longstanding tradition, it is still common for Western funeral attendees to gather after the formal parts of the event—the funeral service and burial or cremation —in a more informal atmosphere to share memories of the deceased and refreshments (Simplicity Funerals 31). Thursby notes that these events, which are ostensibly about the dead, often develop into a celebration of the ties between living family members and friends, “times of reunions and renewed relationships” (94). Sharing food is central to this celebration as “foods affirm identity, strengthen kinship bonds, provide comfortable and familiar emotional support during periods of stress” (79), while familiar dishes evoke both memories and promising signals of the continued celebration of life” (94). While in the southern states and some other parts of the USA, it is customary to gather at the church premises after the funeral for a meal made up of items contributed by members of the congregation, and with leftovers sent home with the bereaved family (Siegfried), it is more common in Australasia and the UK to gather either in the home of the principal mourners, someone else’s home or a local hotel, club or restaurant (Jalland). Church halls are a less common option in Australasia, and an increasing trend is the utilisation of facilities attached to the funeral home and supplied as a component of a funeral package (Australian Heritage Funerals). The provision of this catering largely depends on the venue chosen, with the cookery either done by family and/or friends, the hotel, club, restaurant or professional catering companies, although this does not usually affect the style of the food, which in Australia and New Zealand is often based on a morning or afternoon tea style meal (Jalland). Despite widespread culinary innovation in other contexts, funeral catering bears little evidence of experimentation. Ash likens this to as being “fed by grandmothers”, and describes “scones, pastries, sandwiches, biscuits, lamingtons—food from a fifties afternoon party with the taste of Country Women’s Association about it”, noting that funerals “require humble food. A sandwich is not an affront to the dead” (online). Numerous other memoirists note this reliance on familiar foods. In “S is for Sad” in her An Alphabet for Gourmets (1949), food writer M.F.K. Fisher writes of mourners’s deep need for sustenance at this time as a “mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our hearts seem breaking and our lives too bleakly empty” (135). In line with Probyn’s argument that food foregrounds the viscerality of life (7), Fisher notes that “most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak. […] It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement and strength and […] compel us […] to eat” (135, 136). Yet, while funerals are a recurring theme in food memoirs (see, for example, West, Consuming), only a small number of Western cookbooks address this form of special occasion food provision. Feast by Nigella Lawson Nigella Lawson’s Feast: Food that Celebrates Life (2004) is one of the very few popular contemporary cookbooks in English that includes an entire named section on cookery for funerals. Following twenty-one chapters that range from the expected (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and wedding) to more original (children’s and midnight) feasts, Lawson frames her discussion with an anthropological understanding of the meaning of special occasion eating. She notes that we use food “to mark occasions that are important to us in life” (vii) and how eating together “is the vital way we celebrate anything that matters […] how we mark the connections between us, how we celebrate life” (vii). Such meals embody both personal and group identities because both how and what is eaten “lies at the heart of who we are-as individuals, families, communities” (vii). This is consistent with her overall aims as a food writer—to explore foods’ meanings—as she states in the book’s introduction “the recipes matter […] but it is what the food says that really counts” (vii). She reiterates this near the end of the book, adding, almost as an afterthought, “and, of course, what it tastes like” (318). Lawson’s food writing also reveals considerable detail about herself. In common with many other celebrity chefs and food writers, Lawson continuously draws on, elaborates upon, and ultimately constructs her own life as a major theme of her works (Brien, Rutherford, and Williamson). In doing so, she, like these other chefs and food writers, draws upon revelations of her private life to lend authenticity to her cooking, to the point where her cookbooks could be described as “memoir-illustrated-with-recipes” (Brien and Williamson). The privileging of autobiographical information in Lawson’s work extends beyond the use of her own home and children in her television programs and books, to the revelation of personal details about her life, with the result that these have become well known. Her readers thus know that her mother, sister and first and much-loved husband all died of cancer in a relatively brief space of time, and how these tragedies affected her life. Her first book, How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (1998), opened with the following dedication: “In memory of my mother, Vanessa (1936–1985) and my sister Thomasina (1961–1993)” (dedication page). Her husband, BBC broadcaster and The Times (London) journalist John Diamond, who died of throat cancer in 2001, furthered this public knowledge, writing about both his illness and at length about Lawson in his column and his book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too (1999). In Feast, Lawson discusses her personal tragedies in the introduction of the ‘Funeral Foods’ chapter, writing about a friend's kind act of leaving bags of shopping from the supermarket for her when she was grieving (451). Her first recipe in this section, for a potato topped fish pie, is highly personalised in that it is described as “what I made on the evening following my mother’s funeral” (451). Following this, she again uses her own personal experience when she notes that “I don’t think anyone wants to cook in the immediate shock of bereavement […] but a few days on cooking can be a calming act, and since the mind knows no rest and has no focus, the body may as well be busy” (451). Similarly, her recipe for the slowly hard-boiled, dark-stained Hamine Eggs are described as “sans bouche”, which she explains means “without mouths to express sorrow and anguish.” She adds, drawing on her own memories of feelings at such times, “I find that appropriate: there is nothing to be said, or nothing that helps” (455). Despite these examples of raw emotion, Lawson’s chapter is not all about grief. She also comments on both the aesthetics of dishes suitable for such times and their meanings, as well as the assistance that can be offered to others through the preparation and sharing of food. In her recipe for a lamb tagine that includes prunes, she notes, for example, that the dried plums are “traditionally part of the funeral fare of many cultures […] since their black colour is thought to be appropriate to the solemnity of the occasion” (452). Lawson then suggests this as a suitable dish to offer to someone in mourning, someone who needs to “be taken care of by you” (452). This is followed by a lentil soup, the lentils again “because of their dark colour … considered fitting food for funerals” (453), but also practical, as the dish is “both comforting and sustaining and, importantly, easy to transport and reheat” (453). Her next recipe for a meatloaf containing a line of hard-boiled eggs continues this rhetorical framing—as it is “always comfort food […] perfect for having sliced on a plate at a funeral tea or for sending round to someone’s house” (453). She adds the observation that there is “something hopeful and cheering about the golden yolk showing through in each slice” (453), noting that the egg “is a recurring feature in funeral food, symbolising as it does, the cycle of life, the end and the beginning in one” (453). The next recipe, Heavenly Potatoes, is Lawson’s version of the dish known as Mormon or Utah Funeral potatoes (Jensen), which are so iconic in Utah that they were featured on one of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games souvenir pins (Spackman). This tray of potatoes baked in milk and sour cream and then topped with crushed cornflakes are, she notes, although they sound exotic, quite familiar, and “perfect alongside the British traditional baked ham” (454), and reference given to an earlier ham recipe. These savoury recipes are followed by those for three substantial cakes: an orange cake marbled with chocolate-coffee swirls, a fruit tea loaf, and a rosemary flavoured butter cake, each to be served sliced to mourners. She suggests making the marble cake (which Lawson advises she includes in memory of the deceased mother of one of her friends) in a ring mould, “as the circle is always significant. There is a cycle that continues but—after all, the cake is sliced and the circle broken—another that has ended” (456). Of the fruitcake, she writes “I think you need a fruit cake for a funeral: there’s something both comforting and bolstering (and traditional) about it” (457). This tripartite concern—with comfort, sustenance and tradition—is common to much writing about funeral foods. Cookbooks from the American South Despite this English example, a large proportion of cookbook writing about funeral foods is in American publications, and especially those by southern American authors, reflecting the bountiful spreads regularly offered to mourners in these states. This is chronicled in novels, short stories, folk songs and food memoirs as well as some cookery books (Purvis). West’s memoir Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life (2000) has a chapter devoted to funeral food, complete with recipes (132–44). West notes that it is traditional in southern small towns to bring covered dishes of food to the bereaved, and that these foods have a powerful, and singular, expressive mode: “Sometimes we say all the wrong things, but food […] says, ‘I know you are inconsolable. I know you are fragile right now. And I am so sorry for your loss’” (139). Suggesting that these foods are “concern and sympathy in a Pyrex bowl” (139), West includes recipes for Chess pie (a lemon tart), with the information that this is known in the South as “funeral pie” (135) and a lemon-flavoured slice that, with a cup of tea, will “revive the spirit” (136). Like Lawson, West finds significance in the colours of funeral foods, continuing that the sunny lemon in this slice “reminds us that life continues, that we must sustain and nourish it” (139). Gaydon Metcalf and Charlotte Hays’s Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral (2005), is one of the few volumes available dedicated to funeral planning and also offers a significant cookery-focused section on food to offer at, and take to, funeral events. Jessica Bemis Ward’s To Die For: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia (2004) not only contains more than 100 recipes, but also information about funeral customs, practical advice in writing obituaries and condolence notes, and a series of very atmospheric photographs of this historic cemetery. The recipes in the book are explicitly noted to be traditional comfort foods from Central Virginia, as Ward agrees with the other writers identified that “simplicity is the by-word when talking about funeral food” (20). Unlike the other examples cited here, however, Ward also promotes purchasing commercially-prepared local specialties to supplement home-cooked items. There is certainly significantly more general recognition of the specialist nature of catering for funerals in the USA than in Australasia. American food is notable in stressing how different ethnic groups and regions have specific dishes that are associated with post-funeral meals. From this, readers learn that the Amish commonly prepare a funeral pie with raisins, and Chinese-American funerals include symbolic foods taken to the graveside as an offering—including piles of oranges for good luck and entire roast pigs. Jewish, Italian and Greek culinary customs in America also receive attention in both scholarly studies and popular American food writing (see, for example, Rogak, Purvis). This is beginning to be acknowledged in Australia with some recent investigation into the cultural importance of food in contemporary Chinese, Jewish, Greek, and Anglo-Australian funerals (Keys), but is yet to be translated into local mainstream cookery publication. Possible Publishing Futures As home funerals are a growing trend in the USA (Wilson 2009), green funerals increase in popularity in the UK (West, Natural Burial), and the multi-million dollar funeral industry is beginning to be questioned in Australia (FCDC), a more family or community-centered “response to death and after-death care” (NHFA) is beginning to re-emerge. This is a process whereby family and community members play a key role in various parts of the funeral, including in planning and carrying out after-death rituals or ceremonies, preparing the body, transporting it to the place of burial or cremation, and facilitating its final disposition in such activities as digging the grave (Gonzalez and Hereira, NHFA). Westrate, director of the documentary A Family Undertaking (2004), believes this challenges us to “re-examine our attitudes toward death […] it’s one of life’s most defining moments, yet it’s the one we typically prepare for least […] [and an indication of our] culture of denial” (PBS). With an emphasis on holding meaningful re-personalised after-disposal events as well as minimal, non-invasive and environmentally friendly treatment of the body (Harris), such developments would also seem to indicate that the catering involved in funeral occasions, and the cookbooks that focus on the provision of such food, may well become more prominent in the future. References [AHF] Australian Heritage Funerals. “After the Funeral.” Australian Heritage Funerals, 2013. 10 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.ahfunerals.com.au/services.php?arid=31›. Ash, Romy. “The Taste of Sad: Funeral Feasts, Loss and Mourning.” Voracious: Best New Australian Food Writing. Ed. Paul McNally. Richmond, Vic.: Hardie Grant, 2011. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.romyash.com/non-fiction/the-taste-of-sad-funeral-feasts-loss-and-mourning›. Brien, Donna Lee, Leonie Rutherford, and Rosemary Williamson. "Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). 28 Apr. 2013 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php›. Brien, Donna Lee, and Rosemary Williamson. “‘Angels of the Home’ in Cyberspace: New Technologies and Biographies of Domestic Production”. Biography and New Technologies. Australian National University. Humanities Research Centre, Canberra, ACT. 12-14 Sep. 2006. Conference Presentation. Diamond, John. C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too… . London: Vermilion, 1998. Fisher, M.F.K. “S is for Sad.” An Alphabet for Gourmets. New York, North Point P, 1989. 1st. pub. New York, Viking: 1949. Gonzalez, Faustino, and Mildreys Hereira. “Home-Based Viewing (El Velorio) After Death: A Cost-Effective Alternative for Some Families.” American Journal of Hospice & Pallative Medicine 25.5 (2008): 419–20. Harris, Mark. Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial. New York: Scribner, 2007. Jalland, Patricia. Australian Ways of Death: A Social and Cultural History 1840-1918. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2002. Jensen, Julie Badger. The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations. Salt Lake City: Deseret, 2004. Keys, Laura. “Undertaking a Jelly Feast in Williamstown.” Hobsons Bay Leader 28 Mar. 2011. 2 Apr. 2013 ‹http://hobsons-bay-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/undertaking-a-jelly-feast-in-williamstown›. Lawson, Nigella. How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998. ---. Feast: Food that Celebrates Life. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004. LeClercq, H. “The Agape Feast.” The Catholic Encyclopedia I, New York: Robert Appleton, 1907. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://www.piney.com/AgapeCE.html›. Luby, Edward M., and Mark F. Gruber. “The Dead Must Be Fed: Symbolic Meanings of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9.1 (1999): 95–108. Metcalf, Gaydon, and Charlotte Hays. Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. New York: Miramax, 2005. [NHFA] National Home Funeral Alliance. “What is a Home Funeral?” National Home Funeral Alliance, 2012. 3 Apr. 2013. ‹http://homefuneralalliance.org›. PBS. “A Family Undertaking.” POV: Documentaries with a Point of View. PBS, 2004. 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.pbs.org/pov/afamilyundertaking/film_description.php#.UYHI2PFquRY›. Probyn, Elspeth. Carnal Appetites: Food/Sex/Identities. London: Routledge, 2000. Purvis, Kathleen. “Funeral Food.” The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 247–48. Rogak, Lisa. Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs from Around the World. Berkeley: Ten Speed P, 2004. Siegfried, Susie. Church Potluck Carry-Ins and Casseroles: Homestyle Recipes for Church Suppers, Gatherings, and Community Celebrations. Avon, MA.: Adams Media, 2006. Simplicity Funerals. Things You Need To Know About Funerals. Sydney: Simplicity Funerals, 1990. Smith, Eric Alden, and Rebecca L. Bliege Bird. “Turtle Hunting and Tombstone Opening: Public Generosity as Costly Signaling.” Evolution and Human Behavior 21.4 (2000): 245–61.Spackman, Christy. “Mormonism’s Jell-O Mold: Why Do We Associate the Religion With the Gelatin Dessert?” Slate Magazine 17 Aug. (2012). 3 Apr. 2013.Thursby, Jacqueline S. Funeral Festivals in America: Rituals for the Living. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Varidel, Rebecca. “Bompas and Parr: Funerals and Food at Nelson Bros.” Inside Cuisine 12 Mar. (2011). 3 Apr. 2013 ‹http://insidecuisine.com/2011/03/12/bompas-and-parr-funerals-and-food-at-nelson-bros›. Ward, Jessica Bemis. Food To Die for: A Book of Funeral Food, Tips, and Tales from the Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg: Southern Memorial Association, 2004. West, Ken. A Guide to Natural Burial. Andover UK: Sweet & Maxwell, 2010. West, Michael Lee. Consuming Passions: A Food Obsessed Life. New York: Perennial, 2000. Wilson, M.T. “The Home Funeral as the Final Act of Caring: A Qualitative Study.” Master in Nursing thesis. Livonia, Michigan: Madonna University, 2009.

Abstract:

Swine semantics erupted into a linguistic battle between the two U.S. presidential candidates in the 2008 campaign over a lesser-known colloquialism “lipstick on a pig” reference in a speech by then Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. This resulted in the Republicans sparring with the Democrats over the identification of the “swine” in question, claiming “sexism” and demanding an apology on behalf of then Governor Sarah Palin, the first female Republican vice presidential candidate. The Republican Party, fearful of being criticised for its own sexist and racist views (Kuhn par. 1), seized the opportunity to attack the Democrats with a proactive media campaign that made the lipstick comment a lead story in the media during a critical time less than two months before the election, derailing more serious campaign issues and focusing attention on Palin, who had just made her national political debut and whose level of experience was widely debated. Leskovec, Backstrom, and Kleinberg conducted a meme-tracking study for analysing news-cycle phrases in approximately 90 million stories from 1.6 million online sites spanning mainstream news to blogs during the final three months of the U.S. presidential election (1). They discovered that “lipstick on a pig” was “stickier” than other phrases and received “unexpectedly high popularity” (4). A simple Google search of “lipstick on a pig” resulted in 244,000 results, with more than half originating in 2008. Obama’s “Lipstick on a Pig” Reference During the final rounds of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s words at a widely televised campaign stop in Lebanon, Virginia, on 9 September, sparked a linguistic debate between the two major American political parties 56 days before Election Day. Obama attempted to debunk McCain’s strategy about change in the following statement:John McCain says he’s about change, too. [...] And so I guess his whole angle is, watch out, George Bush. Except for economic policy, healthcare policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics [...] That’s not change. That’s just calling some—the same thing, something different. But you know [...] you can put [...] lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig (“Obama’s Take”).A reporter from The New York Times commented that it was clear to the audience that Obama’s “lipstick” phrase was a direct reference to McCain’s policies (Zeleny par. 5). Known as a well-educated, articulate speaker, perhaps one considered too professorial for mainstream America, Obama attempted to inject more folksy language and humour into his dialogue with the public. However, the Republicans interpreted the metaphor quite differently. Republicans Claim “Sexism” from a “Male Chauvinist Pig” The Republican contender John McCain and his entourage immediately took offence, claiming that the “pig” in question was a sexist comment referring to Palin, who was introduced on 29 August as the first female vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket (“VP Pick”). A Republican National Committee spokeswoman quickly told the media, “Sarah Palin’s maverick record of reform doesn’t need any ‘dressing up,’ but the Obama campaign’s condescending commentary deserves some dressing down” (Chozick par. 8). McCain’s camp formed the Palin Truth Squad with 54 Republican women, primarily lawyers and politicians, on the same day as the metaphor was used, to counter negative media and Internet commentary about Palin (Harper A13). Almost immediately after Obama’s “lipstick” comment, McCain’s camp conducted a conference call with journalists and former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, a Republican and chair of the Palin Truth Squad, who stated the lipstick comment referred to Palin, “the only one of the four—the presidential and vice presidential candidates—who wears lipstick” (Kornblut and Shear par. 12). Another member of the Squad, Thelma Drake, then a Republican Representative from Virginia, said that “it’s hard for Barack Obama to paint himself as the agent of change if he harbors the same mindset that Palin and millions of women just like her, have been fighting against their whole lives” (Applegate par. 8). Swift and others also claimed Obama was referring to Palin since she had herself used a lipstick metaphor during her Republican National Convention speech, 3 Sepember: “I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick” (“Palin’s Speech” par. 26). The Republicans also created an anti-Obama Web ad with the theme, “Ready to Lead? No. Ready to Smear? Yes,“ (Weisman and Slevin A01) with a compilation of video clips of Palin’s “lipstick” joke, followed by the latter part of Obama's “lipstick” speech, and CBS News anchorwoman, Katie Couric, talking about “sexism” in politics, that latter of which referred to an older clip referring to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House. Both clips on Obama and Couric were taken out of context. CBS retaliated and released a statement that the network “does not endorse any candidate” and that “any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading” (Silva par. 8). YouTube pulled the Republican Web ads stating that the cause was “due to a copyright claim” (Silva par. 7). Another porcine phrase became linked to Obama—“male chauvinist pig”—an expression that evolved as an outgrowth of the feminist movement in the 1960s and first appeared with the third word, “pig,” in the media in 1970 (Mansbridge and Flaster 261). BlogHer, a blog for women, posted “Liberal Chauvinist Pigs,” on the same day as Obama's speech, asking: “Does the expression male chauvinist pig come to mind?” (Leary par. 5) Other conservative blogs also reflected on this question, painting Obama as a male chauvinist pig, and chastising both the liberal media and the Democrats for questioning Palin’s credentials as a viable vice presidential candidate. Obama “Sexist Pig Gear” protest tee-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers were sold online by Zazzle.com. Democratic Response to “Controversy” During a campaign stop in Norfolk, Virginia, the day after his “lipstick” comment, Obama called the Republican backlash the “latest made-up controversy by the John McCain campaign” and appealed for a return to more serious topics with “enough” of “foolish diversions” (“Obama Hits”). He stated that the Republicans “seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad, because they know it’s catnip for the news media” (“Obama Hits”). Obama also referred to the situation as the “silly season of politics” in media interviews (James par. 8). Obama’s spokespeople rallied claiming that McCain played the “gender card about the use of a common analogy” (Kornblut and Shear par. 6). An Obama campaign spokesman distributed to the media copies of articles from a Chicago Tribune story in 2007 in which McCain applied the lipstick analogy about the healthcare strategy of Hillary Clinton, a previous female Democratic presidential contender (Chozick 11). Another Obama spokeswoman said that the porcine expression “was older than my grandfather’s grandfather,” (Zimmer par. 1) which also inspired the media and linguists to further investigate this claim. Evolution of “Lipstick on a Pig” This particular colloquial use of a “pig” evolved from a long history of porcine expressions in American politics. American political discourse has been rich with cultural references to porcine idioms with negative connotations. Pork barrels were common 19th-century household items used to store salt pork, and some plantation owners doled out the large barrels as rewards to slaves who then had to compete with each other to grab a portion (Maxey 693). In post-Civil War America, “pork barrel” became a political term for legislative bills “loaded with special projects for Members of Congress to distribute to their constituents back home as an act of largesse, courtesy of the federal taxpayer” (“Pork Barrel Legislation”). Today, “pork barrel” is widely used in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and other countries (“Definition Pork Barrel”) to refer to “government projects or appropriations yielding rich patronage benefits” (“Pork Barrel”). Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh coined the term, “porkulus,” as another expression for “pork barrel” by merging the words “pork and “stimulus,” while discussing President Obama’s economic stimulus package in January 2009 (Kuntz par. 1). Ben Zimmer, an American lexicologist, explained that “many porcine proverbs describe vain attempts at converting something from ugly to pretty, or from useless to useful” (par. 2). Zimmer and other writers investigated the heritage of “lipstick on a pig” over the past 500 years from “you can't make a silk purse from a sow’s ear,” “a hog in armour is still a hog,” and “a hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog.” Zimmer connected the dots between the words “lipstick,” a 19th-century invention, and “pig” to a Los Angeles Times editor in 1926 who wrote: “Most of us know as much of history as a pig does of lipsticks” (par. 3). American Politicians Who Have Smeared “Lipstick on a Pig” Which American politicians had used “lipstick on a pig” before Obama? Both Democrats and Republicans have coloured their speech with this colloquialism to refer to specific issues, not specific people. In 2008, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential hopeful John Edwards, used the porcine expression about McCain’s healthcare proposals at a Democratic campaign event and House Minority Leader John Boehner, a Republican, about weak Republican fundraising efforts during the same month (Covington and Curry par. 7-8). McCain ironically used the term twice to criticise Hillary Clinton’s healthcare proposals as “lipstick on a pig,” while they were both campaigning in 2007 (Covington and Curry par. 6). His statement received limited attention at the time. During a telephone interview in 2007, Obama also had used the pig analogy when referring to an “impossible assignment” George W. Bush gave to General Petraeus, who was then serving as the Multinational Forces Iraq Commander (Tapper par. 15). In 2004, Republican Vice President Richard Cheney applied a regional slant: “As we like to say in Wyoming, you can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but at the end of the day it's still a pig,” about the national defence record of John Kerry, then a Democratic presidential nominee (Covington and Curry par. 4). A few months earlier that year, John Edwards, Democratic vice presidential candidate, scolded the Bush administration for putting “lipstick on a pig” on “lackluster job-creation numbers” (Covington and Curry par. 3). Representative Charles Rangel, a Democrat, identified the “pig” as a tax bill the same year (Siegel par. 15-16). In 1992, the late Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, a Democrat, who was known for colourful phrases, gave the pig a name when she said: “You can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but it is still a pig,” referring to the Republican administration for deploying warships to protect oil tankers in the Middle East, effectively subsidizing foreign oil (Zimmer par. 4). A year earlier, when she introduced her first budget for Texas, she said: “This is not another one of those deals where you put lipstick on a hog and call it a princess” (Zimmer par. 4). The earliest reputed recorded use of an American politician using the phrase was Texas Democrat Jim Hightower, who applied it to depict the reorganisation of Ronald Reagan's Cabinet in 1986 (Macintyre 16). Time magazine reporters (Covington and Curry par. 2) and Zimmer (par. 3) claimed that a San Francisco radio personality, Ron Lyons, was one of the earliest quoted in print with “lipstick on a pig” about renovation plans for a local park in November 1985 in the Washington Post. Author of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, Grant Barrett, uncovered a 1980 article from a small Washington state newspaper as the earliest written record with an article that stated: “You can clean up a pig, put a ribbon on it’s [sic] tail, spray it with perfume, but it is still a pig” (Guzman par. 7). A book on communication also adopted the pig metaphor in its title in 2006, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game, by Torie Clarke, who previously served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Donald Rumsfield during the early years of the G.W. Bush Administration. Media Commentary According to The New York Times (Leibovich and Barrett), “lipstick on a pig” was one of the most popular political buzzwords and phrases of 2008, along with others directly referring to Palin, “Caribou Barbie” and “Hockey Mom,” as well as “Maverick,” a popular term used by both McCain and Palin. Many journalists played on the metaphor to express disdain for negative political campaigns. A Wall Street Journal article asked: “What's the difference between a more hopeful kind of politics and old-fashioned attacks? Lipstick” (Chozick par. 1). International media also covered the Obama-McCain lipstick wars. The Economist, for example, wrote that the “descent of American politics into pig wrestling has dismayed America’s best friends abroad” (“Endless Culture War” par. 6). Bloggers claimed that Obama’s “lipstick” speech was influenced by copy and imagery from two leading American cartoonists. The Free Republic, self-acclaimed to be “the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism” (Freerepublic.com), claimed that Obama plagiarized almost verbatim the language leading into the “pig” comment from a Tom Toles cartoon that ran in the Washington Post on 5 Sepember (see fig. 1).Fig. 1. Toles, Tom. Cartoon. Washington Post. 5 Sep. 2008. 30 July 2010 Another cartoon by R. J. Matson appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (see fig. 2) four days before Obama’s speech that depicted Palin not just as a pig wearing lipstick, but as one using pork barrel funding. The cartoon’s caption provides an interpretation of Palin's lipstick analogy: “Question: What’s the Difference Between a Hockey Mom Reformer and a Business-As-Usual Pork Barrel-Spending Politician? Answer: Lipstick.” Newsbusters.org blogger stated: “It’s not too far-fetched to say Team Obama is cribbing his stump speech laugh lines from the liberal funnies” (Shepherd par. 3). Fig 2. Matson, R. J. Cartoon. St. Louis Post Dispatch. 5 Sep. 2008. 30 July 2010 . A porcine American character known for heavy makeup and a starring role as one of the Muppets created by puppeteer Jim Henson in the 1970s, Miss Piggy still remains an American icon. She commented on the situation during an interview on the set of “Today,” an American television program. When the interviewer asked, “Were you surprised by all the hubbub this election season over your lipstick practices?,” Miss Piggy’s response was “Moi will not dignify that with a response” (Raphael par. 6-7). Concluding Comments The 2008 U.S. presidential election presented new players in the arena: the first African-American in a leading party and the first female Republican. During a major election, words used by candidates are widely scrutinised and, in this case, the “lipstick on a pig” phrase was misconstrued by the opposing party, known for conservative values, that latched onto the opportunity to level a charge of sexism against the more liberal party. Vocabulary about gender, like language about race, can become a “minefield” (Givhan M01). With today’s 24/7 news cycle and the blogosphere, the perceived significance of a political comment, whether innocent or not, is magnified through repeated analysis and commentary. The meme-tracking study by Leskovec, Backstrom, and Kleinberg observed that 2.5 hours was the typical time lag between stories originating in mainstream media and reaching the blogosphere (8); whereas only 3.5 percent of the stories began in blogs and later permeated into traditional media (9). An English author of the history of clichés and language, Julia Cresswell, stated that the “lipstick” term “seems to be another candidate for clichéhood” (61). Although usage of clichés can prove to cause complications as in the case of Obama’s lipstick reference, Obama was able to diffuse the Republican backlash quickly and make a plea to return to serious issues affecting voters. David Greenberg analysed Obama’s presidential win and explained: And although other factors, especially the tanking economy, obviously contributed more directly to his November victory, it would be a mistake to overlook the importance of his skill at mastering the politics of negative attacks. When Obama went negative against others, he carefully singled out aspects of his opponents’ characters that, he argued, American politics itself had to transcend; he associated his foes with the worst of the old politics and himself with the best of the new. When others fired at him, in contrast, he was almost always able to turn the criticisms back upon them—through feigned outrage, among other tactics—as perpetuating those selfsame blights on our politics (70). References Applegate, Aaron. “Rep. Drake Criticizes Obama for ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ Remark.” Virginia Pilot 10 Sep. 2008. 28 Jul. 2010. Chozick, Amy. “Obama Puts Different Twist on Lipstick.” Wall Street Journal 9 Sep. 2008. 30 Jul. 2010. Covington, Marti, and Maya Curry. “A Brief History of: ‘Putting Lipstick on a Pig.’” Time 11 Sep. 2008. 17 May 2010. Cresswell, Julia. “Let’s Hear it for the Cliché.” British Journalism Review 19.57 (2008): 57-61. “Endless Culture War.” The Economist 4 Oct. 2008: ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest. 30 Jul. 2010. “Definition Pork Barrel.” Webster’s Online Dictionary. 30 Jul. 2010. freerepublic.com. “Welcome to Free Republic.” Free Republic 2009. 30 Jul. 2010. Givhan, Robin. “On the Subject of Race, Words Get in the Way.” Washington Post 20 Jan. 2008: M01. Greenberg, David. “Accentuating the Negative.” Dissent 56.2 (2009): 70-75. Guzman, Monica. “‘Lipstick on a Pig’ Finds Origin in Tiny State Newspaper.” Seattlepi.com 10 Sep. 2008. 17 May 2010. Harper, Jennifer. “Obama Comment Offends GOP Women; ‘Palin Truth Squad’ Sent Out to Counter ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ Remark.” Washington Times 10 Sep. 2008: A13. Huston, Warner Todd. “Did Obama Steal His Lip Stick on a Pig From a Political Cartoon?” Newsbusters.org 10 Sep. 2008. 15 Jul. 2010 . James, Frank. “Barack Obama on David Letterman.” Chicago Tribune 11 Sep. 2008. 15 Jul. 2010 http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/barack_obama_on_david_letterma.html>. Kornblut, Anne E., and Michael D. Shear. “McCain Camp Sees an Insult in a Saying.” Washington Post 10 Sep. 2008. 30 Jul. 2010 AR2008090903531.html>. Kuhn, David P. “GOP Fears Charges of Racism, Sexism.” Politico.com 23 Feb. 2008. 4 Oct. 2010. Kuntz, Tom. “Porkulus.” NYTimes.com 8 Feb. 2009. 30 Jul. 2010. Leary, Anne. “Liberal Chauvinist Pigs.” BlogHer 9 Sep. 2008. 2 Oct. 2010. Leibovich, Mark, and Grant Barrett. “The Buzzwords of 2008.” New York Times 21 Dec. 2008. 29 Jul. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/ref/weekinreview/buzzwords2008.html>. Leskovec, Jure, Lars Backstrom, and Jon Kleinberg. “Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle.” ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Paris, 28 Jun. 2009. 30 Jul. 2010 . Macintyre, Ben. “US Politics is Littered with Dawgs, Crawdaddys and Pigs in Lipstick.” The Times [London] 27 Sep. 2008: 16. Mansbridge, Jane, and Katherine Flaster. “Male Chauvinist, Feminist, Sexist, and Sexual Harassment: Different Trajectories in Feminist Linguistic Innovation.” American Speech 80.3 (Fall 2005): 256-279. Maxey, Chester Collins. “A Little History of Pork.” National Municipal Review, Volume VIII. Concord: Rumford Press, 1919. Google Books. 30 Jul. 2010. “Obama Hits Back Against McCain Campaign.” MSNBC 10 Sep. 2008. Televised Speech. 18 May 2010. “Obama’s Take on McCain's Version of Change.” CNN 9 Sep. 2009. YouTube.com. 17 May 2010. “Palin’s Speech at the Republican National Convention.” New York Times 3 Sep. 2008. 17 May 2010. “Pork Barrel.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 2010. 30 Jul. 2010. “Pork Barrel Legislation.” C-SPAN Congressional Glossary. c-span.org. 17 May 2010. Raphael, Rina. “Miss Piggy: Obama Should Make Poodle First Pet” Today 13 Nov. 2008. MSNBC.com. 29 Jul. 2010. Shepherd, Ken. “Palin Shown As Lipsticked Pig in Cartoon Days Before Obama Remark.” NewsBusters.org 11 Sep. 2008. 30 Jul. 2010 . Siegel, Robert. “Putting Lipstick on a Pig.” National Public Radio 10 Sep. 2008. 16 Jul. 2010. Silva, Mark. “Katie Couric's 'Lipstick' Rescue: CBS.” Chicago Tribune 11 Sep. 2008. 30 Jul. 2010. Tapper, Jack. “A Piggish Debate: Power, Pop, and Probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.” ABC News 9 Sep. 2008. 29 Jul. 2010. “VP Pick Palin Makes Appeal to Women Voters.” NBC News, msnbc.com, and Associated Press 28 Aug. 2008. 30 Jul. 2010. Weisman, Jonathan, and Peter Slevin. “McCain Camp Hits Obama on More Than One Front.” Washington Post 11 Sep. 2008: A04. Zeleny, Jeff. “Feeling a Challenge, Obama Sharpens His Silver Tongue.” New York Times 10 Sep. 2008. 27 Jul. 2010. Zimmer, Ben. “Who First Put ‘Lipstick on a Pig’?” The Slate 10 Sep. 2008. 17 May 2010.

Abstract:

07–562Al-Jarf, Reima Sado (King Saud U, Saudi Arabia; reima2000_sa@yahoo.com), Processing of advertisem*nts by EFL college students. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 132–140.07–563Alkire, Scott (San Jose State U, California, USA; scott.alkire@sjsu.edu) & Andrew Alkire, Teaching literature in the Muslim world: A bicultural approach. TESL-EJ (http://www.tesl-ej.org) 10.4 (2007), 13 pp.07–564Belcher, Diane (Georgia State U, USA; dbelcher1@gsu.edu), Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 16.1 (2007), 1–22.07–565Bell, Joyce (Curtin U, Australia; Joyce.Bell@curtin.edu.au), Reading practices: Postgraduate Thai student perceptions. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 51–68.07–566Bndaka, Eleni (ebintaka@sch.gr), Using newspaper articles to develop students' reading skills in senior high school. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 166–175.07–567Coiro, Julie & Elizabeth Dobler, Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the Internet. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.2 (2007), 214–257.07–568Cole, Simon (Daito Bunka U, Japan), Consciousness-raising and task-based learning in writing. The Language Teacher (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 31.1 (2007), 3–8.07–569Commeyras, Michelle & Hellen N. Inyega, An Integrative review of teaching reading in Kenyan primary schools. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.2 (2007), 258–281.07–570Compton-Lilly, Catherine (U Wisconsin–Madison, USA), The complexities of reading capital in two Puerto Rican families. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.1 (2007), 72–98.07–571Duffy, John (U Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA), Recalling the letter: The uses of oral testimony in historical studies of literacy. Written Communication (Sage) 24.1 (2007), 84–107.07–572Dyehouse, Jeremiah (U Rhode Island, USA), Knowledge consolidation analysis: Toward a methodology for studying the role of argument in technology development. Written Communication (Sage) 24.2 (2007), 111–139.07–573Godley, Amanda J., Brian D. Carpenter (U Pittsburgh, USA) & Cynthia A. Werner, ‘I'll speak in proper slang’: Language ideologies in a daily editing activity. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.1 (2007), 100–131.07–574Guénette, Danielle (U du Québec, Canada; guenette.daniele@uqam.ca), Is feedback pedagogically correct? Research design issues in studies of feedback on writing. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 16.1 (2007), 40–53.07–575Gutiérrez-Palma, Nicolás (U de Jaén, Spain; ngpalma@ujaen.es) & Alfonso Palma Reves (U Granada, Spain), Stress sensitivity and reading performance in Spanish: A study with children. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.2 (2007), 157–168.07–576Hu, Guangwei (Nanyang Technical U, Singapore; guangwei.hu@nie.edu.sg), Developing an EAP writing course for Chinese ESL students. RELC Journal (Sage) 38.1 (2007), 67–86.07–577Hunt, George (U Edinburgh, UK; george.hunt@ed.ac.uk), Failure to thrive? The community literacy strand of the Additive Bilingual Project at an Eastern Cape community school, South Africa. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.1 (2007), 80–96.07–578Jiang, Xiangying & William Grabe (Northern Arizona U, USA), Graphic organizers in reading instruction: Research findings and issues. Reading in a Foreign Language (U Hawaii, HI, USA) 19.1 (2007), 34–55.07–579Jin Bang, Hee & Cecilia Guanfang Zhao (New York U, USA; heejin.bang@nyu.edu), Reading strategies used by advanced Korean and Chinese ESL graduate students: A case study. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 30–50.07–580Keshavarz, Mohammad Hossein, Mahmoud Reza Atai (Tarbiat Moallem U, Iran) & Hossein Ahmadi, Content schemata, linguistic simplification, and EFL readers' comprehension and recall. Reading in a Foreign Language (U Hawaii, HI, USA) 19.1 (2007), 19–33.07–581Kirkgöz, Yasemin (Çukurova U, Turkey; ykirkgoz@cu.edu.tr), Designing a corpus based English reading course for academic purposes. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 6.3 (2006), 281–298.07–582Kolić-Vehovec, Svjetlana & Iqor Bajšanski (U Rijeka, Crotia; skolic@ffri.hr), Comprehension monitoring and reading comprehension in bilingual students. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.2 (2007), 198–211.07–583Li, Yongyan, Apprentice scholarly writing in a community of practice: An intraview of an NNES graduate student writing a research article. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 41.1 (2007), 55–79.07–584Marianne (Victoria U Wellington, New Zealand; m.marianne@vuw.ac.nz), A comparative analysis of racism in the original and modified texts ofThe Cay. Reading in a Foreign Language (U Hawaii, HI, USA) 19.1 (2007), 56–68.07–585Marsh, Charles (U Kansas, Lawrence, USA), Aristotelian causal analysis and creativity in copywriting: Toward a rapprochement between rhetoric and advertising. Written Communication (Sage) 24.2 (2007), 168–187.07–586Mellard, Daryl, Margaret Becker Patterson & Sara Prewett, Reading practices among adult education participants. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.2 (2007), 188–213.07–587Mishra, Ranjita (U London, UK) & Rhona Stainthorp, The relationship between phonological awareness and word reading accuracy in Oriya and English: A study of Oriya-speaking fifth-graders. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.1 (2007), 23–37.07–588Naq, Sonali (The Promise Foundation, India; sonalinag@t-p-f.org), Early reading in Kannada: The pace of acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic awareness. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.1 (2007), 7–22.07–589Pretorius, Elizabeth & Deborah Maphoko Mampuru (U South Africa, South Africa; pretoej@unisa.ac.za), Playing football without a ball: Language, reading and academic performance in a high-poverty school. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.1 (2007), 38–58.07–590Pulido, Diana (Michigan State U, USA), The effects of topic familiarity and passage sight vocabulary on L2 lexical inferencing and retention through reading. Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press) 28.1 (2007), 66–86.07–591Purcell-Gates, Victoria (U British Columbia, Canada), Neil K. Duke & Joseph A. Martineau, Learning to read and write genre-specific text: Roles of authentic experience and explicit teaching. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.1 (2007), 8–45.07–592Rahimi, Mohammad (Shiraz U, Iran; mrahimy@gmail.com), L2 reading comprehension test in the Persian context: Language of presentation as a test method facet. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 151–165.07–593Rao, Zhenhui (Jiangxi Normal U, China; rao5510@yahoo.com), Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 61.2 (2007), 100–106.07–594Ravid, Dorit & Yael Epel Mashraki (Tel Aviv U, Israel; doritr@post.tau.ac.il), Prosodic reading, reading comprehension and morphological skills in Hebrew-speaking fourth graders. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.2 (2007), 140–156.07–595Rosary, Lalik (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State, USA) & Kimberly L. Oliver, Differences and tensions in implementing a pedagogy of critical literacy with adolescent girls. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 42.1 (2007), 46–70.07–596Suzuki, Akio (Josai U, Japan), Differences in reading strategies employed by students constructing graphic organizers and students producing summaries in EFL reading. JALT Journal (Japan Association for Language Teaching) 28.2 (2006), 177–196.07–597Takase, Atsuko (Osaka International U, Japan; atsukot@jttk.zaq.ne.jp), Japanese high school students' motivation for extensive L2 reading. Reading in a Foreign Language (U Hawaii, HI, USA) 19.1 (2007), 1–18.07–598Tanaka, Hiroya & Paul Stapleton (Hokkaido U, Japan; higoezo@ybb.ne.jp), Increasing reading input in Japanese high school EFL classrooms: An empirical study exploring the efficacy of extensive reading. The Reading Matrix (Readingmatrix.com) 7.1 (2007), 115–131.07–599Weinstein, Susan (Louisiana State U, Baton Rouge, USA), Pregnancy, pimps, and ‘clichèd love things’: Writing through gender and sexuality. Written Communication (Sage) 24.1 (2007), 28–48.07–600Williams, Eddie (U Bangor, UK; eddie.williams@bangor.ac.uk), Extensive reading in Malawi: Inadequate implementation or inappropriate innovation?Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 30.1 (2007), 59–79.07–601Yamash*ta, Junko, The relationship of reading attitudes between L1 and L2: An investigation of adult EFL learners in Japan. TESOL Quarterly (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 41.1 (2007), 81–105.07–602Yi, Youngjoo (U Alabama, USA; yyi@ua.edu), Engaging literacy: A biliterate student's composing practices beyond school. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 16.1 (2007), 23–39.07–603Zhu, Yunxia (U Queensland, New Zealand; zyunxia@unitec.ac.nz), Understanding sociocognitive space of written discourse: Implications for teaching business writing to Chinese students. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (Walter de Gruyter) 44.3 (2006), 265–285.

Abstract:

Russell Belk,in an amazing 1995 essay on consumption (where 22 of the 38 pages are references, demonstrating hyper-consumption in action), argues that the 1990s heralded a new understanding of consumer behaviour. In the shifting paradigm identified by Belk, the analytical focus of consumer behaviour research became translated from 'Economic/Psychological' to 'Sociological/Anthropological', and from a 'Focus on buying' to a 'Focus on consuming' (61). This made intuitive sense in a world of postmodern marketing (Brown), and it re-enforced an idea that had been put forward by Dallas Smythe that audiences are sold to advertisers . The value of an audience lies in its potential to consume, and Virginia Nightingale subsequently explored this dynamic in her argument that consumption is work: "It is because of the relationship between advertising and television that watching television is work. Watching television is a leisure activity in the pursuit of which viewers are asked to lose themselves, to blur the distinctions between reality and fantasy. They are asked to forget that watching television is also work, to see television advertisem*nts not as a continual reminder of the work of purchasing, but as entertainment. They are asked to believe that what they see on television is what they want to see, specially selected to please them." (33-4) Nightingale had previously argued that consumption in the domestic context was not only work, but quintessentially women'swork: Commercial television is an integral part of the modern shopping world. In this age of image advertising, it is from television that the meanings of brands are learned. If women learned to shop in the nineteenth century, they had to be taught to shop for others in the twentieth. The unpredictable woman of the nineteenth century had to be transformed into predictable, programmable 'Mum' one hundred years later. The branding of food commodities and the establishment of television as an efficient system of brand information assisted a change in the mode of address of the shopping world to women purchasers. In the cut-price world of the 50s and 60s seduction was out and value was in. In a shopping world of comparable brands, Mum has to learn not only the meaning, the lifestyle connotations of branded products from television advertising, but their meanings for the members of the family destined to consume her purchases (33). This way of looking at the world although illuminating begged the question as to an appropriate definition of work. Why did watching television seem so much less like work than, say, typing an article, or working as a waiter? Staying alive breathing, metabolising requires work at some level; what differentiates the 'going to work' side of working: and how does this relate to a consumer society which (as Belk identifies) increasingly involves an emphasis upon consumption rather than production? Greg Hearn, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony estimate that "consumption now accounts for about 60 per cent of GDP ... mass communication, advertising and the consumer economy form a nexus that is centrally implicated in the operation of Western societies" (104). They go on to argue that the "central assertion of postmodern views of consumption is that social identity can be interpreted as a function of consumption" (106). Citing Lunt and Livingstone, Hearn et al. suggest that "fuelled by their ability to modify and process the building blocks of identity (images, visual codes, phrases and ideas), our current mass media, via identity construction, have expanded consumption in advanced industrial societies" (107). Identity construction, however, is a given of existence it is impossible to live without some kind of identity, and impossible to adopt an identity in a vacuum, with no relationship to the social world in which the individual lives. Given that identity-construction is a necessity of existence, and will also necessarily reflect an individual's social practices and their consumption characteristics, can it be seen as 'work'? (And, if not, why not?) One way this problem can be investigated is through changes in work patterns in contemporary societies. Among the most dramatic socio-economic developments of the past two generations has been the changing role of women in the workforce. Some women still in employment are members of the generation which, as recently as the 1960s, were obliged to surrender their jobs upon marriage. Many were subsequently re-employed on a casual basis, but others were unable to resume a career of any sort given that they now had 'family responsibilities' (even if that 'family responsibility' was their spouse alone). The reason behind the compulsory female resignations was the patriarchal view that it was the husband's role to provide financially for his wife. For a married woman to hold a job was akin to double dipping the job was there to support a woman who had no husband to support her; or for a man with a wife (and sometimes other family) to provide for. When women successfully campaigned against this discriminatory practice, and later in favour of equal pay for equal work, the ultimate result was that the real wages of men fell. Two-income families do not earn twice a 'living' wage; they earn a living wage between them. The advent of equal pay for women means that only a small proportion of women (or men) have the choice of making domestic and community-based unwaged labour the focus of their daily life, without the effect of this choice being a much smaller financial engagement in consumer society. The gender dimension to money-earning remains considerable, even in this age of equal opportunity legislation. In particular, the 'wages for housework' campaign has been all but lost over the past thirty years. Further, although it is now unlawful for women to receive less money than their male counterparts for equal work, women's average pay continues to lag significantly behind that of men (WEL). This is one way of demonstrating that traditional women's work tends to be less well paid than men's work. Nursing, teaching and office work all remain low-paid compared with executive occupations, although compulsory post-schooling study requirements might be higher in the female areas. And it is commonplace to note that in traditionally female occupations (like primary school teaching) although males might be out-numbered 5:1 it tends to be a man who gets promoted. (Less a case of the glass ceiling: more a case of the invisible escalator.) In capitalist societies, the original source of monetary wealth lies in power the power to control labour/work for the profit of an individual other than the labourer. This is a hangover from feudal agrarianism, and a precursor to the information age (Bell). In all human society, power confers advantage, including the capacity to direct the work of others. While this was true of the feudal lord, the merchant prince and the early industrialist, it achieved its purest form with the introduction of monetary rewards for labour. Frederic Jameson (77) comments that: "technology may well serve as adequate shorthand to designate that enormous properly human and anti-natural power of dead human labour stored up in our machinery, an alienated power, what Sartre calls the counterfinality of the practico-inert, which turns back on and against us in unrecognizable forms and seems to constitute the massive dystopian horizon of our collective as well as our individual praxis." What Jameson says of technology in general would be equally true of the particular technology of money. Accumulated capital, and its constituent parts of coins, notes, currencies and data sets represents 'dead human labour', in the sense of work expended in the past in the production of goods and services. It is this stored human labour which buys the carrots, or the magazine subscription, and which represents an exchange for the time and energy that would have been required to grow the carrots, or produce the magazine. Similarly, the income paid to the carrot-grower, the journalist, the designer and the advertiser represents to them a distilled recompense for their work. Arguably, the energy that produced the labour for which one is paid is 'dead' energy controlled by another and exchanged for money. At an individual level, the roles played in the personaeof a person earning money, or a person spending money (a common indication of consumption) are very different: with the role of the person earning money much more circ*mscribed. Joshua Meyrowitz (29-31) spends some time in explaining Goffman's analysis of the roles of the waiter, using metaphors from drama of front/back region/stage: Waiters for example are in a front region when they serve people in a restaurant dining room. In the front region waiters are usually polite and respectful. Their appearance and manner is one of cleanliness and efficiency. They do not enter into the dinner conversations of restaurant patrons. They do not comment on their customers' eating habits or table manners. They rarely, if ever, eat while in the sight of patrons. When waiters step from the dining room into the kitchen, however, they suddenly cross a line between the onstage and backstage areas. In the kitchen waiters are in an area which is hidden from the audience and they share this area with others who perform the same or similar roles vis-a-vis the audience. Here, then, waiters may make remarks to each other about the 'strange behaviour of the people at table seven', they may imitate a customer, or give advice to a 'rookie' on methods of getting big tips. In the kitchen food may be handled and discussed with somewhat less respect than in the dining room, and waiters may 'get out of costume' or sit in a sloppy position with their feet up on a counter... We expect to be treated differently in a restaurant than in a doctor's office. We expect the doctor to appear confident, concerned, patient and professional and slightly superior. We expect a waitress to be efficient, respectful and nonintrusive. And we demand these differences in 'character' even if the waitress is a student earning her way through medical school. This analysis indicates that where behaviour is related to money where a person is paid to fulfil a role; the production of the goods or services the behaviour is more constrained and circ*mscribed by the expectations of the employer/consumer. The behaviour of people who are paying for a service, whose intention is to consume, is the least constrained. It may be that Kerry Packer has awful table manners, but few restauranteurs would fail to be pleased to see him walking through their door. At the level of the individual producer/consumer in consumer societies, money is seen to exert decisive control in the lives of workers. Is it possible to think of a better, less obviously coercive way to get people into cars, and onto freeways and clocking into the office on such a regular, reliable basis: other than their being paid to do so? American academic Camille Paglia does not think so: "Capitalism, whatever its problems, remains the most efficient economic mechanism yet devised to bring the highest quality of life to the greatest number... Because I have studied the past, I know that, in America and under capitalism, I am the freest woman in history" (Menand 27). Paglia obviously considers herself sufficiently well paid. Since access to money limits access to goods, to some experiences and to travel, money is a potent incentive to behave in a way that is rewarded by society. Even so, not everyone is able to exhibit the work behaviour that social systems are most inclined to reward. The stresses of unemployment lie in its curtailing of options; in its implications for health, housing, leisure, and educational opportunities; and in the fact that the need to get more money monopolises the time of the unemployed. The old adage 'time is money' is only partly true. In some respects the two share an inverse relationship: 'free' time is inversely related to money. For the vast majority of the population, the opportunity to convert work/labour into money significantly limits the time available in which to enjoy consuming the rewards for their labours. When people have 'free' time, it is frequently because the opportunity to earn money by the production of goods and services is absent. Consequently possible consumption activities are also severely limited. There are no hard and fast rules in Jameson's late capitalist society, but the general case might be that we are paid to produce goods, services and information through our controlled work, while consumption is generally constructed as a voluntary activity. It is partly that voluntariness which implicates consumption in identity construction, makes it an expression of individual difference, and renders it potentially pleasurable. Arguably, however, the voluntary nature of consumption together with the impossibility of notconsuming prevents it from being categorised unambiguously as 'work'. The relationship of work to money helps explain why it may be work to watch television, but it's a different kind of work from that performed at the Coles check-out. Identity-construction may be a major consumer project using raw materials provided by the mass media, but it is not work we're paid to do. No-one else is prepared to use their stored labour to recompense us for our everyday work as non-professional television viewers, or for our project of self-individuation as expressed through the production of our personal identity. References Belk, Russell. "Studies in the New Consumer Behaviour." Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies. Ed. D. Miller. London: Routledge, 1995. 58-95. Bell, Daniel. The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society. Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Brown, Stephen. Postmodern Marketing. London: Routledge, 1995. Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organisation of Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1974. Hearn, Greg, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony. The Communication Superhighway: Social and Economic Change in the Digital Age. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Jameson, Frederic. "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." New Left Review146 (1984): 53-92. Lunt, Peter, and Sonia Livingstone. Mass Consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday Economic Experience. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1992. Menand, Louis. "Sexual Politics with Snap, Crackle and Pure Paglian Pop." The Australian3 Feb. 1993: 27. Meyrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Nightingale, Virginia. "Women as Audiences." Television and Women's Culture: The Politics of the Popular. Ed. M.-E. Brown. Sydney: Currency Press, 1990. 25-36. Smythe, Dallas. Dependency Road. New Jersey: Ablex, 1981. WEL. 12 Nov. 2001 <http://www.wel.org.au/policy/00pol1.htm>. Links http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwpress/jrls/cjc/BackIssues/17.4/melody.html http://www.onemoreweb.com/soapbox/paglia.html http://www.wel.org.au/policy/00pol1.htm http://www.business.utah.edu/~mktrwb/ http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/jameson/ Citation reference for this article MLA Style Green, Lelia. "The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4.5 (2001). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml >. Chicago Style Green, Lelia, "The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4, no. 5 (2001), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml > ([your date of access]). APA Style Green, Lelia. (2001) The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml > ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

04–421Allen, Susan (U. Maryland, USA; Email: srallen@erols.com). An analytic comparison of three models of reading strategy instruction. International Review of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (Berlin, Germany), 41 (2003), 319–338.04–422Angelini, Eileen M. (Philadelphia U., USA). La simulation globale dans les cours de Français. [Global simulation activities in French courses] Journal of Language for International Business (Glendale, Arizona, USA), 15, 2 (2004), 66–81.04–423Beaudoin, Martin (U. of Alberta, Canada; Email: martin.beaudoin@ualberta.ca). A principle based approach to teaching grammar on the web. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK), 16, 2 (2004), 462–474.04–424Bianchi, Sebastián (U. Cambridge, UK; Email: asb49@cam.ac.uk). El gran salto: de GCSE a AS level. [The big jump: GCSE to AS level] Vida Hispánica (Rugby, UK), 30 (2004), 12–17.04–425Burden, Peter (Okayama Shoka U., Japan; Email: burden-p@po.osu.ac.jp). Do we practice what we teach? Influences of experiential knowledge of learning Japanese on classroom teaching of English. The Language Teacher (Tokyo, Japan), 28, 10 (2004), 3–9.04–426Coria-Sánchez, Carlos M. (U. North Carolina-Charlotte, USA). Learning cultural awareness in Spanish for business and international business courses: the presence of negative stereotypes in some trade books used as textbooks. Journal of Language for International Business (Glendale, Arizona, USA), 15, 2 (2004), 49–65.04–427Cortes, Viviana (Iowa State U., USA). Lexical bundles in published and student disciplinary writing: Examples from history and biology. English for Specific Purposes (Oxford, UK), 23, 4 (2004), 397–423.04–428Cowley, Peter (U. of Sydney, Australia; Email: peter.cowley@arts.usyd.edu.au) and Hanna, Barbara E. Cross-cultural skills – crossing the disciplinary divide. Language and Communication (Oxford, UK), 25, 1 (2005), 1–17.04–429Curado Fuentes, Alejandro (U. of Extremadura, Spain; Email: acurado@unex.es). The use of corpora and IT in evaluating oral task competence for Tourism English. CALICO Journal (Texas, USA), 22, 1 (2004), 5–22.04–430Currie, Pat (Carleton U., Canada; Email: pcurrie@ccs.carleton.ca) and Cray, Ellen. ESL literacy: language practice or social practice?Journal of Second Language Writing (New York, USA), 13, 2 (2004), 111–132.04–431Dellinger, Mary Ann (Virginia Military Institute, USA). La Alhambra for sale: a project-based assessment tool for the intermediate business language classroom. Journal of Language for International Business (Glendale, Arizona, USA), 15, 2 (2004), 82–89.04–432Erler, Lynn (U. Oxford, UK; Email: lynn.erler@educational-studies.oxford.ac.uk). Near-beginner learners of French are reading at a disability level. Francophonie (Rugby, UK), 30 (2004), 9–15.04–433Fleming, Stephen (U. of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA; Email: sfleming@hawaii.edu) and Hiple, David. Distance education to distributed learning: multiple formats and technologies in language instruction. CALICO Journal (Texas, USA), 22, 1 (2004), 63–82.04–434Fonder-Solano, Leah and Burnett, Joanne. Teaching literature/reading: a dialogue on professional growth. Foreign Language Annals (New York, USA), 37, 3 (2004), 459–469.04–435Ghaith, Ghazi (American U. of Beirut, Lebanon; Email: gghaith@aub.ed.lb). Correlates of the implementation of the STAD co-operative learning method in the English as a Foreign Language classroom. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Clevedon, UK), 7, 4 (2004), 279–294.04–436Gilmore, Alex (Kansai Gaidai U., Japan). A comparison of textbook and authentic interactions. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 58, 4 (2004), 363–374.04–437Hayden-Roy, Priscilla (U. of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA). Well-structured texts help second-year German students learn to narrate. Die Unterrichtspraxis (Cherry Hill, NJ, USA), 37, 1 (2004), 17–25.04–438He, Agnes Weiyun (SUNY Stony Brook, USA; Email: agnes.he@stonybrook.edu). CA for SLA: arguments from the Chinese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal (Malden, MA, USA), 88, 4 (2004), 568–582.04–439Hegelheimer, Volker (Iowa State U., USA; Email: volker@)iastate.edu), Reppert, Ketty, Broberg, Megan, Daisy, Brenda, Grggurovic, Maja, Middlebrooks, Katy and Liu, Sammi. Preparing the new generation of CALL researchers and practitioners: what nine months in an MA program can (or cannot) do. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK), 16, 2 (2004), 432–437.04–440Hémard, Dominique (London Metropolitan U., UK; Email: d.hemard@londonmet.ac.uk). Enhancing online CALL design: the case for evaluation. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK), 16, 2 (2004), 502–519.04–441I-Ru, Su (National Tsing Hua U., Taiwan; Email: irusu@mx.nthu.edu.tw). The effects of discourse processing with regard to syntactic and semantic cues: a competition model study. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 25 (2004), 587–601.04–442Ingram, David (Melbourne U. Private, Australia; Email: d.ingram@muprivate.edu.au.), Kono, Minoru, Sasaki, Masako, Tateyama, Erina and O'Neill, Shirley. Cross-cultural attitudes. Babel – Journal of the AFMLTA (Queensland, Australia), 39, 1 (2004), 11–19.04–443Jackson, Alison (Bridgewater High School, UK; Email: alison@thebirches777.fsnet.co.uk). Pupil responsibility for learning in the KS3 French classroom. Francophonie (Rugby, UK), 30 (2004), 16–21.04–444Jamieson, Joan, Chapelle, Carole A. and Preiss, Sherry (Northern Arizona U., USA; Email: joan.jamieson@nau.edu). Putting principles into practice. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK), 16, 2 (2004), 396–415.04–445Jiang, Nan (Georgia State U., USA; Email: njiang@gsu.edu). Morphological insensitivity in second language processing. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge, UK), 25 (2004), 603–634.04–446Kim, Hae-Dong (Catholic U. of Korea; Email: kimhd@catholic.ac.kr). Learners' opinions on criteria for ELT materials evaluation. English Teaching (Anseonggun, Korea), 59, 3 (2004), 3–28.04–447Kim, Hae-Ri (Kyungil U., Korea; Email: hrkimasu@hanmail.net). Exploring the role of a teacher in a literature-based EFL classroom through communicative language teaching. English Teaching (Anseonggun, Korea), 59, 3 (2004) 29–51.04–448Kim, Jung-Hee (International Graduate School of English, Korea; Email: alice@igse.ac.kr). Intensive or extensive listening for L2 beginners?English Teaching (Anseonggun, Korea), 59, 3 (2004), 93–113.04–449Lan, Rae and Oxford, Rebecca L. (U. Maryland, USA; Email: raelan0116@yahoo.com). Language learning strategy profiles of elementary school students in Taiwan. International Review of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (Berlin, Germany), 41 (2003), 339–379.04–450Levis, John (Iowa State U., USA; Email: jlevis@iastate.edu) and Pickering, Lucy. Teaching intonation in discourse using speech visualization technology. System (Oxford, UK), 32, 4 (2004), 505–524.04–451Liddicoat, Anthony L. (Griffith U., Australia; Email: T.Liddicoat@griffith.edu.au). The conceptualisation of the cultural component of language teaching in Australian language-in-education policy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK), 25, 4 (2004), 297–317.04–452McArthur, Tom. Singapore, grammar, and the teaching of ‘internationally acceptable English’. English Today (Cambridge, UK), 20, 4 (2004), 13–19.04–453Macbeth, Douglas (Ohio State U., USA; Email: macbeth.1@osu.edu). The relevance of repair for classroom correction. Language in Society (Cambridge, UK), 33 (2004), 703–736.04–454Mahoney, Sean (f*ckushima U., Japan). Role Controversy among team teachers in the JET Programme. JALT Journal (Tokyo, Japan), 26, 2 (2004), 223–244.04–455Mansoor, Sabiha (Aga Khan U., Pakistan; Email: sabiha.mansoor@aku.edu). The status and role of regional languages in higher education in Pakistan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK), 25, 4 (2004), 333–353.04–456Markee, Numa (U. Illinois, Urbana, USA; Email: nppm@uiuc.edu). Zones of interactional transition in ESL classes. The Modern Language Journal (Malden, MA, USA), 88, 4 (2004), 583–596.04–457Méndez García, María del Carmen (U. of Jaén, Spain; Email: cmendez@ujaen.es), Castro Prieto, Paloma and Sercu, Lies. Contextualising the foreign language: an investigation of the extent of teachers' sociocultural background knowledge. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK), 24, 6 (2003), 496–512.04–458Mondada, Lorenza and Pekarek Doehler, Simona (U. de Lyon II, France; Email: Lorenza.Mondada@univ-lyon2.fr). Second language acquisition as situated practice: task accomplishment in the French second language classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon,UK), 25, 4 (2004), 297–317.04–459Mori, Junko (U. of Wisconsin-Madison, USA; Email: j.mori@wisc.edu). Negotiating sequential boundaries and learning opportunities: a case from a Japanese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal (Malden, MA, USA), 88, 4 (2004), 536–550.04–460Nesi, Hilary, Sharpling, Gerard and Ganobcsik-Williams, Lisa (U. of Warwick, UK; Email: h.j.nesi@warwick.ac.uk). Student papers across the curriculum: designing and developing a corpus of British student writing. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 21, 2 (2004), 439–450.04–461Nunes, Alexandra (U. of Aviero, Portugal). Portfolios in the EFL classroom: disclosing an informed practice. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 58, 4 (2004), 327–335.04–462Pani, Susmita (Teaching Institute Orissa at Bhubaneswar, India). Reading strategy instruction through mental modeling. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK), 58, 4 (2004), 355–362.04–463Pritchard, Rosalind and Nasr, Atef (U. of Ulster, Northern Ireland). Improving reading performance among Egyptian engineering students: principles and practice. English for Specific Purposes (Oxford, UK), 23, 4 (2004), 425–456.04–464Polansky, Susan G. (Carnegie Mellon U., USA). Tutoring for community outreach: a course model for language. Learning and bridge-building between universities and public schools. Foreign Language Annals (Alexandria, VA, USA), 37, 3 (2004), 367–373.04–465Reinhardt, Jonathan and Nelson, K. Barbara (Pennsylvania State U., USA; Email: jsr@psu.edu). Instructor use of online language learning resources: a survey of socio-institutional and motivational factors. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK), 16, 2 (2004), 292–307.04–466Rose, Carol and Wood, Allen (U. of Kansas, USA). Perceived value of business language skills by doctoral students in foreign language departments. Journal of Language for International Business (Glendale, Arizona, USA), 15, 1 (2004), 19–29.04–467Snyder Ohta, Amy and Nakaone, Tomoko (U. of Washington, USA; Email: aohta@u.washington.edu). When students ask questions: teacher and peer answers in the foreign language classroom. International Review of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (Berlin, Germany), 42 (2004), 217–237.04–468Tajino, Akira (Kyoto U., Japan; Email: akira@tajino.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp), James, Robert and Kijima Kyoichi. Beyond needs analysis: soft systems methodology for meaningful collaboration in EAP course design. Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Oxford, UK), 4, 1 (2005), 27–42.04–469Wang, Xinchun (California State U., USA: Email: xinw@csufresno.edu) and Munro, Murray. Computer-based training for learning English vowel contrasts. System (Oxford, UK), 32, 4 (2004), 539–552.04–470Ware, Paige D. (Southern Methodist U., Dallas, USA; Email: pware@smu.edu). Confidence and competition online: ESL student perspectives on web-based discussions in the classroom. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 21, 2 (2004), 451–468.04–471Yang, Nae-Dong (National Taiwan U., Taiwan; Email: naedong@ccms.ntu.edu.tw). Integrating portfolios into learning strategy-based instruction for EFL college students. International Review of Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching (Berlin, Germany), 41 (2003), 293–317.04–472Zapata, Gabriela C. and Oliveras Heras, Montserrat (Tulane U., USA). CALL and task-based instruction in Spanish for business classes. Journal of Language for International Business (Glendale, Arizona, USA), 15, 1 (2004), 62–74.

Abstract:

05–486Balnaves, Edmund (U of Sydney, Australia; ejb@it.usyd.edu.au), Systematic approaches to long term digital collection management. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford, UK) 20.4 (2005), 399–413.05–487Barwell, Graham (U of Wollongong, Australia; gbarwell@uow.edu.au), Original, authentic, copy: conceptual issues in digital texts. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford, UK) 20.4 (2005), 415–424.05–488Beech, John R. & Kate A. Mayall (U of Leicester, UK; JRB@Leicester.ac.uk), The word shape hypothesis re-examined: evidence for an external feature advantage in visual word recognition. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 302–319.05–489Belcher, Diane (Georgia State U, USA; dbelcher1@gsu.edu) & Alan Hirvela, Writing the qualitative dissertation: what motivates and sustains commitment to a fuzzy genre?Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 4.3 (2005), 187–205.05–490Bernhardt, Elisabeth (U of Minnesota, USA; ebernhar@stanford.edu), Progress and procrastination in second language reading. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (Cambridge, UK) 25 (2005), 133–150.05–491Bishop, Dorothy (U of Oxford, UK; dorothy.bishop@psy.ox.ac.uk), Caroline Adams, Annukka Lehtonen & Stuart Rosen, Effectiveness of computerised spelling training in children with language impairments: a comparison of modified and unmodified speech input. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 144–157.05–492Bowey, Judith A., Michaela McGuigan & Annette Ruschena (U of Queensland, Australia; j.bowey@psy.uq.edu.au), On the association between serial naming speed for letters and digits and word-reading skill: towards a developmental account. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.4 (2005), 400–422.05–493Bowyer-Crane, Claudine & Margaret J. Snowling (U of York, UK; c.crane@psych.york.ac.uk), Assessing children's inference generation: what do tests of reading comprehension measure?British Journal of Educational Psychology (Leicester, UK) 75.2 (2005), 189–201.05–494Bruce, Ian (U of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand; ibruce@waikato.ac.nz), Syllabus design for general EAP writing courses: a cognitive approach. Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 4.3 (2005), 239–256.05–495Burrows, John (U of Newcastle, Australia; john.burrows@netcentral.com.au), Who wroteShamela? Verifying the authorship of a parodic text. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford, UK) 20.4 (2005), 437–450.05–496Clarke, Paula, Charles Hulme & Margaret Snowling (U of York, UK; CH1@york.ac.uk), Individual differences in RAN and reading: a response timing analysis. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 73–86.05–497Colledge, Marion (Metropolitan U, London, UK; m.colledge@londonmet.ac.uk), Baby Bear or Mrs Bear? Young English Bengali-speaking children's responses to narrative picture books at school. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.1 (2005), 24–30.05–498De Pew, Kevin Eric (Old Dominion U, Norfolk, USA; Kdepew@odu.edu) & Susan Kay Miller, Studying L2 writers' digital writing: an argument for post-critical methods. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 259–278.05–499Dekydtspotter, Laurent (Indiana U, USA; ldekydts@indiana.edu) & Samantha D. Outcalt, A syntactic bias in scope ambiguity resolution in the processing of English French cardinality interrogatives: evidence for informational encapsulation. Language Learning (Malden, MA, USA) 55.1 (2005), 1–36.05–500Fernández Toledo, Piedad (Universidad de Murcia, Spain; piedad@um.es), Genre analysis and reading of English as a foreign language: genre schemata beyond text typologies. Journal of Pragmatics37.7 (2005), 1059–1079.05–501French, Gary (Chukyo U, Japan; french@lets.chukyo-u.ac.jp), The cline of errors in the writing of Japanese university students. World Englishes (Oxford, UK) 24.3 (2005), 371–382.05–502Green, Chris (Hong Kong Polytechnic U, Hong Kong, China), Profiles of strategic expertise in second language reading. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics (Hong Kong, China) 9.2 (2004), 1–16.05–503Groom, Nicholas (U of Birmingham, UK; nick@nicholasgroom.fsnet.co.uk), Pattern and meaning across genres and disciplines: an exploratory study. Journal of English for Academic Purposes (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 4.3 (2005), 257–277.05–504Harris, Pauline & Barbara McKenzie (U of Wollongong, Australia; pharris@uow.edu.au), Networking aroundThe Waterholeand other tales: the importance of relationships among texts for reading and related instruction. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.1 (2005), 31–37.05–505Harrison, Allyson G. & Eva Nichols (Queen's U, Canada; harrisna@post.queensu.ca), A validation of the Dyslexia Adult Screening Test (DAST) in a post-secondary population. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.4 (2005), 423–434.05–506Hirvela, Alan (Ohio State U, USA; hirvela.1@osu.edu), Computer-based reading and writing across the curriculum: two case studies of L2 writers. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 337–356.05–507Holdom, Shoshannah (Oxford U, UK; shoshannah.holdom@oucs.ox.ac.uk), E-journal proliferation in emerging economies: the case of Latin America. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford, UK) 20.3 (2005), 351–365.05–508Hopper, Rosemary (U of Exeter, UK; r.hopper@ex.ac.uk), What are teenagers reading? Adolescent fiction reading habits and reading choices. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 113–120.05–509Jarman, Ruth & Billy McClune (Queen's U, Northern Ireland; r.jarman@qub.ac.uk), Space Science News: Special Edition, a resource for extending reading and promoting engagement with newspapers in the science classroom. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 121–128.05–510Jia-ling Charlene Yau (Ming Chuan U, Taiwan; jyau@mcu.edu.tw), Two Mandarin readers in Taiwan: characteristics of children with higher and lower reading proficiency levels. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 108–124.05–511Justice, Laura M, Lori Skibbel, Andrea Canning & Chris Lankford (U of Virginia, USA; ljustice@virginia.edu), Pre-schoolers, print and storybooks: an observational study using eye movement analysis. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 229–243.05–512Kelly, Alison (Roehampton U, UK; a.m.kelly@roehampton.ac.uk), ‘Poetry? Of course we do it. It's in the National Curriculum.’ Primary children's perceptions of poetry. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 129–134.05–513Kern, Richard (U of California, Berkeley, USA; rkern@berkeley.edu) & Jean Marie Schultz, Beyond orality: investigating literacy and the literary in second and foreign language instruction. The Modern Language Journal (Malden, MA, USA) 89.3 (2005), 381–392.05–514Kispal, Anne (National Foundation for Educational Research, UK; a.kispal@nfer.ac.uk), Examining England's National Curriculum assessments: an analysis of the KS2 reading test questions, 1993–2004. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 149–157.05–515Kriss, Isla & Bruce J. W. Evans (Institute of Optometry, London, UK), The relationship between dyslexia and Meares-Irlen Syndrome. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 350–364.05–516Lavidor, Michal & Peter J. Bailey (U of Hull, UK; M.Lavidor@hull.ac.uk), Dissociations between serial position and number of letters effects in lateralised visual word recognition. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 258–273.05–517Lee, Sy-ying (Taipei, Taiwan, China; syying.lee@msa.hinet.net), Facilitating and inhibiting factors in English as a foreign language writing performance: a model testing with structural equation modelling. Language Learning (Malden, MA, USA) 55.2 (2005), 335–374.05–518Leppänen, Ulla, Kaisa Aunola & Jari-Erik Nurmi (U of Jyväskylä, Finland; uleppane@psyka.jyu.fi), Beginning readers' reading performance and reading habits. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.4 (2005), 383–399.05–519Lingard, Tony (Newquay, Cornwall, UK; tonylingard@awled.co.uk), Literacy Acceleration and the Key Stage 3 English strategy–comparing two approaches for secondary-age pupils with literacy difficulties. British Journal of Special Education32.2, 67–77.05–520Liu, Meihua (Tsinghua U, China; ellenlmh@yahoo.com) & George Braine, Cohesive features in argumentative writing produced by Chinese undergraduates. System (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 33.4 (2005), 623–636.05–521Masterson, Jackie, Veronica Laxon, Emma Carnegie, Sheila Wright & Janice Horslen (U of Essex; mastj@essex.ac.uk), Nonword recall and phonemic discrimination in four- to six-year-old children. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 183–201.05–522Merttens, Ruth & Catherine Robertson (Hamilton Reading Project, Oxford, UK; ruthmerttens@onetel.net.uk), Rhyme and Ritual: a new approach to teaching children to read and write. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.1 (2005), 18–23.05–523Min Wang (U of Maryland, USA; minwang@umd.edu) & Keiko Koda, Commonalities and differences in word identification skills among learners of English as a Second Language. Language Learning (Malden, MA, USA) 55.1 (2005), 71–98.05–524O'Brien, Beth A., J. Stephen Mansfield & Gordon E. Legge (Tufts U, Medford, USA; beth.obrien@tufts.edu), The effect of print size on reading speed in dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 332–349.05–525Pisanski Peterlin, Agnes (U of Ljubljana, Slovenia; agnes.pisanski@guest.arnes.si), Text-organising metatext in research articles: an English–Slovene contrastive analysis. English for Specific Purposes (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 24.3 (2005), 307–319.05–526Rilling, Sarah (Kent State U, Kent, USA; srilling@kent.edu), The development of an ESL OWL, or learning how to tutor writing online. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 357–374.05–527Schacter, John & Jo Booil (Milken Family Foundation, Santa Monica, USA; schacter@sbcglobal.net), Learning when school is not in session: a reading summer day-camp intervention to improve the achievement of exiting First-Grade students who are economically disadvantaged. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 158–169.05–528Shapira, Anat (Gordon College of Education, Israel) & Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz, Opening windows on Arab and Jewish children's strategies as writers. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Clevedon, UK) 18.1 (2005), 72–90.05–529Shillco*ck, Richard C. & Scott A. McDonald (U of Edinburgh, UK; rcs@inf.ed.ac.uk), Hemispheric division of labour in reading. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 244–257.05–530Singleton, Chris & Susannah Trotter (U of Hull, UK; c.singleton@hull.ac.uk), Visual stress in adults with and without dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.3 (2005), 365–378.05–531Spelman Miller, Kristyan (Reading U, UK; k.s.miller@reading.ac.uk), Second language writing research and pedagogy: a role for computer logging?Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 297–317.05–532Su, Susan Shiou-mai (Chang Gung College of Technology, Taiwan, China) & Huei-mei Chu, Motivations in the code-switching of nursing notes in EFL Taiwan. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics (Hong Kong, China) 9.2 (2004), 55–71.05–533Taillefer, Gail (Toulouse U, France; gail.taillefer@univ-tlse1.fr), Reading for academic purposes: the literacy practices of British, French and Spanish Law and Economics students as background for study abroad. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.4 (2005), 435–451.05–534Tardy, Christine M. (DePaul U, Chicago, USA; ctardy@depaul.edu), Expressions of disciplinarity and individuality in a multimodal genre. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 319–336.05–535Thatcher, Barry (New Mexico State U, USA; bathatch@nmsu.edu), Situating L2 writing in global communication technologies. Computers and Composition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 22.3 (2005), 279–295.05–536Topping, Keith & Nancy Ferguson (U of Dundee, UK; k.j.topping@dundee.ac.uk), Effective literacy teaching behaviours. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 125–143.05–537Torgerson, Carole (U of York, UK; cjt3@york.ac.uk), Jill Porthouse & Greg Brooks, A systematic review of controlled trials evaluating interventions in adult literacy and numeracy. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 87–107.05–538Willett, Rebekah (U of London, UK; r.willett@ioe.ac.uk), ‘Baddies’ in the classroom: media education and narrative writing. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 142–148.05–539Wood, Clara, Karen Littleton & Pav Chera (Coventry U, UK; c.wood@coventry.ac.uk), Beginning readers' use of talking books: styles of working. Literacy (Oxford, UK) 39.3 (2005), 135–141.05–540Wood, Clare (The Open U, UK; c.p.wood@open.ac.uk), Beginning readers' use of ‘talking books’ software can affect their reading strategies. Journal of Research in Reading (Oxford, UK) 28.2 (2005), 170–182.05–541Yasuda, Sachiko (Waseda U, Japan), Different activities in the same task: an activity theory approach to ESL students' writing process. JALT Journal (Tokyo, Japan) 27.2 (2005), 139–168.05–542Zelniker, Tamar (Tel-Aviv U, Israel) & Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz, School–Family Partnership for Coexistence (SFPC) in the city of Acre: promoting Arab and Jewish parents' role as facilitators of children's literacy development and as agents of coexistence. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Clevedon, UK) 18.1 (2005), 114–138.

Abstract:

Introduction Contrary to popular understandings of academia, the work of academics is intrinsically community driven, because scholarly inquiry is invariably about social life. Therefore, what occupies academic scholarship is in the interest of the broader populace, and we rely on the public to inform our work. The findings of academic work are simultaneously a reflection of the researcher, and the public. The research interests of contemporary cultural and social researchers inevitably, and often necessarily, reflect issues and activities that they encounter in their everyday lives. My own doctoral research into contemporary cultural discourses informing the expectations, and experiences of motherhood in regional Western Australia, reflects an academic, personal and community interest. The doctoral research drawn on in this paper, stresses the relevance of cultural research projects to the concerns and behaviours of the wider public. The enthusiasm with which participants responded to this project, and reported back about their feelings and actions following the interview was unexpected. The immediacy of the impact this project has had on assisting women to create and consider alternate discourses demonstrates the capacity of this work to inform and direct contemporary social, political and cultural debates surrounding the bodily expectations, and experiences of motherhood. The feminist inspired methodology adopted in this project facilitated my speaking to other women negotiating cultural ideals about what constitutes a "good mother" in contemporary regional Western Australia. It has the potential to open up conversations between women, and between women and men, as evidenced by subsequent responses from participants. By examining the impact of these cultural ideals with everyday women, this project provides a means for women, and men, to reflect, engage critically and ultimately re-shape these discourses to more accurately reveal the desires and aspirations of everyday Australian women. From my perspective, three discourses in particular, the Good Mother, the Superwoman, and the Yummy Mummy, inform the expectations and experiences of motherhood. The orthodox discourse of the 'Good Mother' understands motherhood as a natural feminine desire and it describes characteristics such as enduring love, care, patience and selflessness that are often presented as synonymous with motherhood. Women who can successfully juggle the expectations of being a 'good mother' and a dedicated professional worker, are 'superwomen'. Increasingly dominant is the expectation that following maternity, women should not look as if they have had a child at all; the discourse of the Yummy Mummy focused on in this paper. The relationships between these discourses are complex; "failure to perform" them adequately can result in women being labelled "bad mothers", either by themselves or others. Although these discourses are Western and globalising, they have a tangible effect locally. The cultural scripts they proscribe to are often contradictory; resulting in many women feeling conflicted. Despite some levels of critical engagement with these competing cultural agendas, the women in this study reflected, to differing degrees, their internalisation of the expectations that accompany these cultural scripts. The outcome of this work, and the process of producing it, has the capacity to influence the direction of current debates in Australia. Amongst others, the debate surrounding the contemporary cultural "presentation" of postnatal bodies, including what women should look like as mothers. The role of the media in shaping the current expectations surrounding the postnatal body, including the recently raised proposal that glossy magazines, and other forms of media, should have to declare incidences of Photoshopping, or other forms of photo enhancement, is one agenda that this project can influence. I explore the potential of this work to influence these debates through an examination of the impact of popularised fantasies on women's subjectivity, and feelings towards their postnatal bodies. An examination of the ways that some aspects of mothering are excluded from popular media sources highlights the capacity of this work to provide a practical means of sharing contemporary expectations and experiences of motherhood amongst women, those already mothering, and those intending to mother, and men. These debates have an impact on, and relevance for, the everyday lives of Australian women and men. Feminist Methodologies: Opportunities to Foster Mutual Understanding and Recognition of Shared Experience The motivating emphasis of feminist research is "women's lives and the questions they have about their own experiences" (Bloom 112). Consequently, a feminist methodology includes a concern with transformation and empowerment through the research practice (McRobbie, "Politics" 52). For Luff this reminds feminist researchers that their first duty is to "deal respectively with women's subjectivity, and indeed the inter-subjectivities of researcher and participants" (692). Olesen, in her account of feminist qualitative research, articulates that: the researcher too, has attributes, characteristics, a history, and gender, class, race and social attributes that enter the researcher interaction … in light of the multiple positions, selves, and identities at play in the research process, the subjectivity of the researcher, as much as that of the researched, became foregrounded. (226-7) This signifies for Olesen the indistinct boundary between researchers and researched (227), and for myself, signals the potential that feminist research praxis has for uniting the academic and broader, communities. According to Reinharz the interview has historically been the principle way in which feminists have pursued the active contribution of their participants in the construction of their research projects (Heyl 374). The research findings of this doctoral project are based on a series of interviews with nine intending to mother women, and twenty one already mothering women. The research questions were open-ended to allow participants to answer "in their own terms" (Jones 48). Participants were also encouraged to reflect on aspects of mothering, or plans to mother, that were most significant to them. Following Oakley (49) and others (Bloom 11) argument that there can be no intimacy between researcher and participant without reciprocity, while I chose not to express my personal disagreement to any statements made by participants, I self-consciously chose to answer any questions that participants directed to me. I did not attempt to hide my personal empathy with many of their accounts, and allowed for email follow up. By doing my upmost to position myself as a "validating listener" rather than a scrutinising judge, I allowed the women to reflect on the fact that their feelings were not necessarily unusual or "abnormal", and did not make them "bad mothers". In this way, both the process, and the final product of this work can provide a practical means for women to share some of their feelings, which are often excluded, or in some cases, vilified (Arendell 1196; O'Donohoe 14), in popular media outlets. The outcome of this work can contribute to an alternate space for everyday women to "be real" with both other mothers, and intending to mother women, and contribute to discourses of motherhood. Unreal Imagery and the Postnatal Body: Possibilities for Communication and Alteration Drawing on the principal example of the impact of unreal imagery, specifically images of airbrushed supermodels and celebrities, on the real experiences of motherhood by everyday Australian women, I propose that this project can foster further communications between intending to mother, and already mothering women, and their partners, about the realities, and misconceptions of motherhood; particularly, to share aspects of mothering that are excluded or marginalised in popular media representations. Through this process of validating the experiences of "real" everyday women, women, and men, can affect a break from, or at least critique, dominant discourses surrounding motherhood, and appreciate that there are a multiplicity of opinions, information, and ways of mothering. A dominant aspect of the "unreal" surrounding motherhood concerns the body and what women are led to believe their bodies can, and indeed, should, look like, postnatal. Unsurprisingly, the women in my study associated this "unreal" with Hollywood representations, and the increasing plethora of celebrity mums they encounter in the media. As McRobbie has suggested, a popular front page image for various celebrity chasing weekly magazines is the Yummy Mummy, "who can squeeze into size six jeans a couple of weeks after giving birth, with the help of a personal trainer", an image that has provided the perfect foundation for marketing companies to promote the arena of maternity as the next central cultural performance in terms of femininity, in which "high maintenance pampering techniques, as well as a designer wardrobe" ("Yummy") are essential. The majority of women in my study spoke about these images, and the messages they send. With few exceptions, the participants identified popular images surrounding mothering, and the expectations that accompany them, as unrealistic, and inaccurate. Several women reflected on the way that some aspects of their experience, which, in many cases, turned out to be shared experience, of mothering are excluded, or "hidden away", in popular media forms. For Rachel, popular media representations do not capture the "realness" of everyday experiences of motherhood: I was looking at all these not so real people … Miranda Kerr like breast feeding with her red stiletto's on and her red lipstick and I'm just like right you've got your slippers on and your pyjamas on and you're lucky to brush your teeth by lunchtime … I don't think they want to keep it real … It's not all giggles and smiles; there is uncontrollable crying in the middle of the night because you don't know what's wrong with them and you find out the next day that they've got an ear infection. You know where's all that, they miss out all that, it's all about the beautiful sleeping babies and you know the glam mums. (Rachel, aged 33, mother of one) The individual women involved in this study were personally implicated to differing degrees in these unreal images. For Penelope, these types of representations influenced her bodily expectations, and she identified this disjunction as the most significant in her mothering experience: I expected to pop straight back into my pre-maternity size, that for me was the hugest thing actually, like you see these ladies who six weeks after they've had their baby, look as good as before sort of thing, no stretch marks or anything like and then I thought if they can do it, I can do it sort of thing and it didn't work like that. (Penelope, aged 36, mother of four) Penelope's experience was not an unusual one, with the majority of women reporting similar feelings. The findings of this study concur with the outcomes reported by a recent United Kingdom survey of 2000 women, which found that 82 per cent were unhappy with their postnatal bodies, 77 per cent were "shocked by the changes to their body", and, more than nine out of ten agreed that "celebrity mothers' dramatic weight loss 'puts immense and unwelcome pressure on ordinary mums" (O'Donohoe 9). This suggests that celebrity images, and the expectations that accompany them, are having a widespread effect in the Western world, resulting in many women experiencing a sense of loss when it comes to their bodies. They must "get their bodies back", and may experience shame over the unattainability of this goal, which appears to be readily achievable for other women. To appreciate the implications of these images, and the power relations involved, these effects need to be examined on the local, everyday level. O'Donohoe discusses the role of magazines in funding this unreal imagery, and their fixation on high-profile Yummy Mummies, describing their coverage as "hyper-hypocritical" (9-10). On one hand, they play a leading role in the proliferation, promotion and reinforcement of the Yummy Mummy ideal, and the significant pressure this discourse places on women in the wider community. Whilst on the other hand they denigrate and vilify celebrity mums who are also increasingly pressured into this performance, labelling them as "weigh too thin" (cover of Famous magazine, Jan. 2011) and "too stressed to eat" (cover of OK magazine, June 2011). Gill and Arthurs observe how: the female celebrity body is under constant surveillance, policed for being too fat, too thin, having wrinkles or 'ugly hands' … 'ordinary' women's bodies are under similar scrutiny when they participate in the growing number of reality make-over shows in which … female participants are frequently humiliated and vilified. (444) An observation by one of my participants suggests the implications of these media trends on the lives of everyday women, and suggests that everyday women are inscrutably aware of the lack of alternative discourses: It's kind of like fashionable to talk about your body and what's wrong with it, it's not really, I don't know. You don't really say, check out, like god I've got good boobs and look at me, look how good I look. It's almost like, my boobs are sagging, or my bums too big, it's never anything really positive. (Daisy, aged 36, mother of two) The "fashionable" nature of body surveillance is further supported by the vast majority of women in this study who reported such behaviour. A preoccupation with the body as a source of identity that emphasises self-surveillance, self-monitoring, and self-discipline (Gill 155) is a central component to neoliberalism, and the Yummy Mummy phenomenon. As O'Donohoe surmises, maternity now requires high maintenance (3). O'Donohoe comments on the concern this generates amongst some women regarding their weight gain, leading to some cases of infant malnutrition as a consequence of dieting whilst pregnant (9). Whilst this is an extreme example, mothering women's anxiety over body image is a widespread concern as reflected in this study. This trend towards body surveillance suggests that the type of sexualisation Attwood describes as taking place in Western cultures, is present and influential amongst the women in this study. I concur with Attwood that this trend is supplementary to the intensification of neoliberalism, in which "the individual becomes a self-regulating unit in society" (xxiii). The body as a key site for identity construction, acts as a canvas, on which the cultural trend towards increasing sexualisation, is printed, and has implications for both feminine and maternal identities. The women in this study reported high incidences of body self-surveillance, with an emphasis on the monitoring of "weight". For many women, the disjuncture between the popularised "unreal", and the reality of their postnatal bodies resulted in feelings of shock and disappointment. For Teal, positive feelings and self-esteem were connected to her weight, and she discussed how she had to restrict weighing herself to once a week, at a particular time of day, to avoid distress: I'm trying to make it that I don't go on the scales, just once and week and like in the morning, because like I go at different times and like your weight does change a little bit during the day and your oh my goodness I've put on kilo! And feel awful and then next morning you weigh yourself and go good its back. (Teal, aged 25, mother of one) According to Foucault (Sawicki, Disciplining 68), the practice of self-surveillance teaches individuals to monitor themselves, and is one of the key normative operations of biopower, a process that attaches individuals to their identities. The habitual approach to weight monitoring by many of the women in this study suggests that the Yummy Mummy discourse is becoming incorporated into the identities of everyday mothering women, as a recognisable and dominant cultural script to perform, to differing degrees, and to varying grades of consciousness. A number of participants in this study worked in the fitness industry, and whilst I expected them to be more concerned about their bodies postnatal, because of the pressures they face in their workplaces to "look the part", the education they receive about their bodies gave them a realistic idea of what individual women can achieve, and they were among the most critical of weight monitoring practices. As several feminist and poststructuralist theorists suggest, disciplinary practices, such as self-surveillance, both underscore, and contribute to, contemporary cultural definitions of femininity. From a Foucauldian perspective, a woman in this context becomes "a self-policing subject, self-committed to a relentless self-surveillance" (Hekman 275). However, although for Foucault, total liberation is impossible, some parts of social life are more vulnerable to criticism than others, and we can change particular normalising practices (165). Creating alternate mothering discourses is one way to achieve this, and some women did reflect critically on these types of self-policing behaviours. A minority of women in this study recognised their body as "different" to before they had children. Rather than agonise over these changes, they accepted them as part of where they are in their lives right now: I'm not the same person that I was then, its different, I like I just sort of feel that change is good, it's okay to be different, it's okay for me look different, it's okay for my body to kind of wear my motherhood badges that's okay I feel happy about that. So I don't want it to look exactly the same, no I don't actually. (Corinne, aged 33, mother of four) As many of the women who have been in email contact with me since their interviews have expressed, the questions I asked have prompted them to reflect more consciously on many of these issues, and for some, to have conversations with loved ones. For me, this demonstrates that this project has assisted women, and the process of taking part has elicited conversations between more women, and importantly, between women and men, about these types of media representations, and the expectations they create. In response to a growing body of research into the effects of unrealistic imagery on women, particularly young women and the increasing rates of eating disorders amongst women (see for example Hudson et al.; Taylor et al.; Treasure) in Western communities, there has been debate in a number of Western countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Australia, over whether the practice of digitally altering photos in the media, should be legislated so that media outlets are required to declare when and how images have been altered. The media has not greeted this suggestion warmly. In response to calls for legislative action Jill Wanless, an associate editor at Look magazine, suggested that "sometimes readers want hyper-reality in a way—they want to be taken out of their own situation". The justification for "perfected" images, in this case, is the inferred distinction they create between the unreal and reality. However, the responses from the everyday women involved in this study suggest that their desire is not for "hyper reality", but rather for "realness" to be represented. As Corinne explains: Where's the mother on the front page of the magazine that says I took 11 months to lose my baby weight…I hate this fantasy world, where's the reality, where's our real mums, our real women who are out there going I agonise over dropping my kid in day care everyday when they cry, I hate it. That's real. Performativity, as an inextricable aspect of hyper reality, may be ignored by those with a vested interest in media production, but the roles that discourses such as the Yummy Mummy have in proliferating and creating the expectation of these performances, is of interest to both the community and cultural theorists. Conclusion The capacity to influence current cultural, political and social debates surrounding what women should look like as mothers in contemporary Western Australian society is important to explore. Using feminist methodologies in such work provides an opportunity to unite the academic and broader communities. By disassembling the boundary between researcher and researched, it is possible to encourage mutual understanding and the recognition of mutual experience amongst researcher, participants' and the wider community. Taking part in this research has elicited conversations between women, and men concerning their expectations, and experiences of parenthood. Most importantly, the outcome of this work has reflected a desire by local everyday women for the media to include their stories in the broader presentation of motherhood. In this sense, this project has, and can further, assist women in sharing aspects of their experiences that are frequently excluded from popular media representations, and present the multiplicity of mothering experiences, and what being a "good mother" can entail. Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank the following for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this article: Dr Kathryn Trees, Yann Toussaint, Linda Warren and the anonymous M/C Journal reviewers. References Arendell, Terry. "Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship." Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1192-207. Attwood, Feona. Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualisation of Western Culture. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Bloom, Leslie. "Reflections from the Field: Locked in Uneasy Sisterhood: Reflections on Feminist Methodology and Research Relations." Anthropology & Education Quarterly 28.1 (1997): 111-22. Wanless, Jill. "Curb Airbrushed Images, Keep Bodies Real." CBS News World UK, 2010. 20 Sep. 2010 ‹http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/20/world/main6884884.shtml›. Gill, Rosalind. Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity P, 2007. Gill, Rosalind, and Jane Arthurs. "Editors Introduction: New Femininities?" Feminist Media Studies 6.4 (2006): 443-51. Hekman, Susan. Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1996. Heyl, Barbara Sherman. "Ethnographic Interviewing." Handbook of Ethnography. Eds. Paul Atkinson, Amanda J. Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland, and Lyn H. Lofland. London: Sage, 2001. 369-83. Hudson, James I., Eva Hiripi, Harrison G. Pope Jr., and Ronald C. Kessler. "The Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication." Biological Psychiatry 61.3 (2007). 348-58. Jones, Sue. "Depth Interviewing." Applied Qualitative Research. Ed. Robert Walker. Ashgate, 1985. 45-56. Luff, Donna. "Dialogue across the Divides: 'Moments of Rapport' and Power in Feminist Research with Anti-Feminist Women." Sociology 33.4 (1999): 687-703. McRobbie, Angela. "The Politics of Feminist Research: Between Talk, Text and Action." Feminist Review 12 (1982): 46-57. ———. "Yummy Mummies Leave a Bad Taste for Young Women: The Cult of Celebrity Motherhood Is Deterring Couples from Having Children Early. We Need to Rethink the Nanny Culture." The Guardian 2 Mar. 2006. Oakley, Ann. "Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms." Doing Feminist Research. Ed. Helen Roberts. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 30-61. O'Donohoe, Stephanie. "Yummy Mummies: The Clamour of Glamour in Advertising to Mothers." Advertising & Society Review 7.3 (2006): 1-18. Olesen, Virginia. "Feminisms and Qualitative Research at and into the Millennium." Handbook of Qualitative Research. Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln. London: Sage, 2000. 215-55. Sawicki, Jana. Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power, and the Body. New York: Routledge, 1991. ———. "Feminism, Foucault, and 'Subjects' of Power and Freedom." Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. Ed. Susan J. Hekman, University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1996. 159-210. Taylor, C. Barr, et al. "The Adverse Effect of Negative Comments about Weight and Shape for Family and Siblings on Women at High Risk for Eating Disorders." Paediatrics 118 (2006): 731-38. Treasure, Janet. "An Image Is Worth a Thousand Words of Public Health." Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry 56.1 (2007): 7-8.

Abstract:

Since its return in 2005 the science fiction series Doctor Who (BBC1) has featured many alien creatures which bear a striking similarity to non-human Earth species: the Judoon in “Smith and Jones” (2007) have heads like rhinoceroses; the nurses in “New Earth” (2006) are cats in wimples; the Tritovores in “Planet of the Dead” (2009) are giant flies in boilersuits. Yet only one non-human animal has appeared twice in the series, in unrelated stories: the pig. Furthermore, alien races such as the Judoon and the Tritovores simply happen to look like human species, and the series offers no narrative explanation as to why such similarities exist. When the pig has appeared, however, it has instead been as the consequence of experimentation and mutation, and in both cases the appearance of such porcine hybrids is signalled as horrific, unsettling and, in the end, to be pitied. The fact that the pig has appeared in this way twice suggests there is something about the human understanding of this animal which means it can fulfil a role in fiction unavailable to other Earth species. The pig’s appearance has been in two stories, both two-parters. In “Aliens of London”/“World War Three” (2005) a spaceship crashes into London’s Thames river, and the pilot inside, thought to be dead, is sent to be scientifically examined. Alone in the laboratory, the pathologist Doctor Sato is startled to find the creature is alive and, during its attempt to escape, it is shot by the military. When the creature is examined The Doctor reveals it is “an ordinary pig, from Earth.” He goes on to explain that, “someone’s taken a pig, opened up its brain, stuck bits on, then they’ve strapped it in that ship and made it dive-bomb. It must have been terrified. They’ve taken this animal and turned it into a joke.” The Doctor’s concern over the treatment of the pig mirrors his earlier reprimand of the military for shooting it; as he cradles the dying creature he shouts at the soldier responsible, “What did you do that for? It was scared! It was scared.” On the commentary track for the DVD release of this episode Julie Gardner (executive producer) and Will Cohen (visual effects producer) note how so many people told them they had a significant emotional reaction to this scene, with Gardner adding, “Bless the pig.” In that sense, what begins as a moment of horror in the series becomes one of empathy with a non-human being, and the pig moves from being a creature of terror to one whose death is seen to be an immoral act. This movement from horror to empathy can be seen in the pig’s other appearance, in “Daleks in Manhattan”/“Evolution of the Daleks” (2007). Here the alien Daleks experiment on humans in order to develop the ability to meld themselves with Earthlings, in order to repopulate their own dwindling numbers. Humans are captured and then tested; as Laszlo, one of the outcomes of the experimentation, explains, “They’re divided into two groups: high intelligence and low intelligence. The low intelligence are taken to becomes Pig Slaves, like me.” These Pig Slaves look and move like humans except for their faces, which have prolonged ears and the pig signifier of a snout. At no point in the story is it made clear why experimentations on low intelligence humans should result in them looking like pigs, and a non-hybrid pig is not seen throughout the story. The appearance of the experiments’ results is therefore not narratively explained, and it does not draw on the fact that “in digestive apparatus and nutrient requirements pigs resemble humans in more ways than any mammal except monkeys and apes, which is why pigs are much in demand for [human] medical research” (Harris 70); indeed, considering the story is set in the 1930s such a justification would be anachronistic. The use of the pig, therefore, draws solely on its cultural, not its scientific, associations. These associations are complex, and the pig has been used to connote many things in Western culture. Children’s books such as The Sheep-Pig (King-Smith) and Charlotte’s Web (White) suggest the close proximity of humans and pigs can result in an affinity capable of communication. The use of pigs to represent Poles in Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Spiegelman), on the other hand, has been read as offensive, drawing on the animal’s association with dirt and greed (Weschler). These depictions are informed by debates about pigs in the real world, whereby an animal which, as mentioned above, is similar enough to humans to be useful in medical research can also, for the food industry, go through a slaughtering process described by Bob Torres as “horribly cruel” (47). Such cruelty can only be justified if the boundaries between the pig and the human are maintained, and this is why pig-human representations are capable of being shocking and horrific. The hybrid nature of the human-pig creature draws on the horror trope that Noël Carroll refers to as “fusion” which works because it “unites attributes held to be categorically distinct” such as “inside/outside, living/dead, insect/human, flesh/machine” (43). He explains that this is why characters in horror narratives do not find such creatures simply fearful, but also “repellent, loathsome, disgusting, repulsive and impure” (54); their failure to conform to accepted cultural categories destabilises assumed norms and, perhaps most horrifically, undermines ‘the human’ as a stable, natural and superior category. As Donna Haraway notes, “‘The species’ often means the human race, unless one is attuned to science fiction, where species abound” (18). Science fiction therefore commonly plays with ideas of species because it is often interested in “the image of the scientist ‘playing god’” (Jones 51) and the horrific outcomes of “the total severing of scientific concerns from ethical concerns” (53). That the result of human/non-human experimentation should be regarded as horrific is evidence of the need to maintain the distinctions between humans and other creatures; after all, a pig/human can only be thought of as horrific if it as assumed that there is something unnatural about the destabilisation of the human category. And it is precisely the human which matters in this equation; it is not really as if anyone cares about the pig’s categorical stability in all of this. In both these stories, the appearance of the pig-creature is narratively structured to be surprising and shocking, and is withheld from the audience for as long as possible. The first appearance of a Pig Slave in “Daleks in Manhattan” constitutes that episode’s pre-credits cliff-hanger, with the creature appearing out of the shadows and bearing down upon the camera, directly towards the audience viewing at home. At this point, the audience has no idea why such a creature exists; the meaning of the pig-human hybrid is contained purely in its visual appearance, with the horrific fact of its contradictory appearance perhaps drawing on the pig’s historical association with evil and the Devil (Sillar and Meyler 82). Similarly, in “Aliens of London” we see Sato’s shocked reaction to the pig far earlier than we actually see the creature ourselves, and Sato’s scream is clearly intended to construct what we have yet to encounter as horrific. The Doctor’s search for the creature is similarly signalled, as he roams dimly-lit corridors trying to find it, following the trail of the grunts and noises that it makes. That the pig might constitute a horrific—or at least unsettling—site for humans is unsurprising considering the cultural roles it has often played. There is, after all, an “opposition between civilization and piggishness” (Ashley, Hollows, Jones and Taylor 2) in which (incorrect) assumptions about pigs’ filthy behaviour helps mark out humanity’s cleaner and more civilised way of living. While this is true of all human/non-human interactions, it is argued that the pig occupies a particular role within this system as it is a “familiar beast” (4) because for centuries it has been a domesticated animal which has often lived alongside humans, usually in quite close proximity. In that sense, humans and pigs are very similar. Demarcating the human as a stable and natural “conceptual category ... in which we place all members of our own species and from which we exclude all non-members” (Milton 265-66) has therefore required the denigration of non-humans, at least partly to justify the dominion humans have decided they have the right to hold over other creatures such as pigs. The difficulties in maintaining this demarcation can be seen in the documentary The Private Life of Pigs (BBC2 2010) in which the farmer Jimmy Docherty carries out a number of tests on animals in order to better understand the ‘inner life’ of the pig. Docherty acknowledges the pig’s similarity to humans in his introductory piece to camera; “When you look in their piggy little eyes with their piggy little eyelashes you see something that reflects back to you—I don’t know—it makes you feel there’s a person looking back.” However, this is quickly followed by a statement which works to reassert the human/non-human boundary; “I know we have this close relationship [with pigs], but I’m often reminded that just beneath the surface of their skin, they’re a wild animal.” Perhaps the most telling revelation in the programme is that pigs have been found to make certain grunting noises only when humans are around, which suggests they have developed a language for ‘interacting’ with humans. That Docherty is uncomfortably startled by this piece of information shows how the idea of communication troubles ideas of human superiority, and places pigs within a sphere hitherto maintained as strictly human. Of course, humans often willingly share domestic spaces with other species, but these are usually categorised as pets. The pet exists “somewhere between the wild animal and the human” (Fudge 8), and we often invest them with a range of human characteristics and develop relationships with such animals which are similar, but not identical, to those we have with other humans. The pig, however, like other food animals, cannot occupy the role afforded to the pet because it is culturally unacceptable to eat pets. In order to legitimise the treatment of the pig as a “strictly utilitarian object; a thing for producing meat and bacon” (Serpell 7) it must be distinguished from the human realm as clearly as possible. It is worth noting, though, that this is a culturally-specific process; Dwyer and Minnegal, for example, show how in New Guinea “pigs commonly play a crucial role in ceremonial and spiritual life” (37-8), and the pig is therefore simultaneously a wild animal, a source of food, and a species with which humans have an “attachment” (45-54) akin to the idea of a pet. Western societies commonly (though not completely) have difficulty uniting this range of animal categories, and analogous ideas of “civilization” often rest on assumptions about animals which require them to play specific, non-human roles. That hom*o sapiens define their humanity in terms of civilization is demonstrated by the ways in which ideas of brutality, violence and savagery are displaced onto other species, often quite at odds with the truth of such species’ behaviour. The assumption that non-human species are violent, and constitute a threat, is shown in Doctor Who; the pig is shot in “Aliens of London” for assumed security reasons (despite it having done nothing to suggest it is a threat), while humans run in fear from the Pig Slaves in “Evolution of the Daleks” purely because of their non-human appearance. Mary Midgley refers to this as “the Beast Myth” (38) by which humans not only reduce other species to nothing other than “incarnations of wickedness, … sets of basic needs, … crude mechanical toys, … [and] idiot children” (38), but also lump all non-human species together thereby ignoring the specificity of any particular species. Midgley also argues that “man shows more savagery to his own kind than most other mammal species” (27, emphasis in original), citing the need for “law or morality to restrain violence” (26) as evidence of the social structures required to uphold a myth of human civilization. In that sense, the use of pigs in Doctor Who can be seen as conforming to centuries-old depictions of non-human species, by which the loss of humanity symbolised by other species can be seen as the ultimate punishment. After all, when the Daleks’ human helper, Mr Diagoras, fears that the aliens are going to experiment on him, he fearfully exclaims, “What do you mean? Like those pig-men things? You’re not going to turn me into one of those? Oh, God, please don’t!” In the next episode, when all the Pig Slaves are killed by the actions of the Doctor’s companion Martha, she regrets her actions, only to be told, “No. The Daleks killed them. Long ago”, for their mutation into a ‘pig-man thing’ is seen to be a more significant loss of humanity than death itself. The scene highlights how societies are often “confused about the status of such interspecies beings” (Savulescu 25). Such confusion is likely to recur considering we are moving into a “posthumanist” age defined by the “decentering of the human” (Wolfe xv), whereby critiques of traditional cultural categories, alongside scientific developments that question the biological certainty of the human, result in difficulties in defining precisely what it is that is supposedly so special about hom*o sapiens. This means that it is far too easy to write off these depictions in Doctor Who as merely drawing on, and upholding, those simplistic and naturalised human/non-human distinctions which have been criticised, in a manner similar to sexism and racism, as “speciesist” (Singer 148-62). There is, after all, consistent sympathy for the pig in these episodes. The shooting of the pig in “Aliens of London” is outrageous not merely because it gives evidence of the propensity of human violence: the death of the pig itself is presented as worth mourning, in a manner similar to the death of any living being. Throughout the series the Doctor is concerned over the loss of life for any species, always aiming to find a non-violent method for solving conflicts and repeatedly berating other characters who resort to bloodshed for solutions. Indeed, the story’s narrative can be read as one in which the audience is invited to reassess its own response to the pig’s initial appearance, shifting from fear at its alien-ness to sympathy for its demise. This complication of the cultural meanings of pigs is taken even further in the two-part Dalek story. One of the key plots of the story is the relationship between Laszlo, who has been transmuted into a Pig Slave, and his former lover Tallulah. Tallulah spends much of the story thinking Laszlo has disappeared, when he has, in fact, gone into hiding, certain that she will reject him because of his post-experimentation porcine features. When they finally reunite, Laszlo apologises for what has happened to him, while Tallulah asks, “Laszlo? My Laszlo? What have they done to you?” At the end of the story they decide to try re-establishing their relationship, despite Laszlo’s now-complicated genetic make-up. In response to this Martha asks the Doctor, “Do you reckon it’s going to work, those two?” The Doctor responds that while such an odd pairing might be problematic pretty much anywhere else, as they were in New York they might just get away with it. He reflects, “That’s what this city’s good at. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and maybe the odd Pig Slave Dalek mutant hybrid too.” While there is an obvious playfulness to this scene, with the programme foregrounding the kinds of narrative available to the science fiction genre, it is also clear that we are invited to find this a good narrative conclusion, a suitable resolution to all that has preceded it. In that sense, the pig and the human come together, dissolving the human/non-human divide at a stroke, and this is offered to the audience as something to be pleased about. In both narratives, then, the pig moves from being understood as alien and threatening to something if not quite identical to human, then certainly akin to it. Certainly, the narratives suggest that the lives, loves and concerns of pigs—even if they have been experimented upon—matter, and can constitute significant emotional moments in primetime mainstream family television. This development is a result of the text’s movement from an interest in the appearance of the pig to its status as a living being. As noted above, the initial appearances of the pigs in both stories is intended to be frightening, but such terror is dependent on understanding non-human species by their appearance alone. What both of these stories manage to do is suggest that the pig—like all non-human living things, whether of Earth or not—is more than its physical appearance, and via acknowledgment of its own consciousness, and its own sense of identity, can become something with which humans are capable of having sympathy; perhaps more than that, that the pig is something with which humans should have sympathy, for to deny the interior life of such a species is to engage in an inhuman act in itself. This could be seen as an interesting—if admittedly marginal—corrective to the centuries of cultural and physical abuse the pig, like all animals, has suffered. Such representations can be seen as evoking “the dreaded comparison” (Spiegel) which aligns maltreatment of animals with slavery, a comparison that is dreaded by societies because to acknowledge such parallels makes justifying humans’ abusive treatment of other species very difficult. These two Doctor Who stories repeatedly make such comparisons, and assume that to morally and emotionally distinguish between living beings based on categories of species is nonsensical, immoral, and fails to acknowledge the significance and majesty of all forms of life. That we might, as Gardner suggests, “Bless the pig”—whether it has had its brain stuffed full of wires or been merged with a human—points towards complex notions of human/non-human interaction which might helpfully destabilise simplistic ideas of the superiority of the human race. References Ashley, Bob, Joanne Hollows, Steve Jones and Ben Taylor. Food and Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Dwyer, Peter D. and Monica Minnegal. “Person, Place or Pig: Animal Attachments and Human Transactions in New Guinea.” Animals in Person: Cultural Perspectives on Human-Animal Intimacies. Ed. John Knight. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005. 37-60. Fudge, Erica. Pets. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008. Haraway, Donna J. When Species Meet. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Harris, Marvin. “The Abominable Pig.” Food and Culture: A Reader. Ed. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. 67-79. Jones, Darryl. Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film. London: Arnold, 2002. King-Smith, Dick. The Sheep-Pig. London: Puffin, 1983. Midgley, Mary. Beast and Man. London and New York: Routledge, 1979/2002. Milton, Kay. “Anthropomorphism or Egomorphism? The Perception of Non-Human Persons by Human Ones.” Animals in Person: Cultural Perspectives on Human-Animal Intimacies. Ed. John Knight. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005. 255-71. Savulescu, Julian. “Human-Animal Transgenesis and Chimeras Might be an Expression of our Humanity.” The American Journal of Bioethics 3.3 (2003): 22-5. Serpell, James. In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Sillar, Frederick Cameron and Ruth Mary Meyler. The Symbolic Pig: An Anthology of Pigs in Literature and Art. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1961. Singer, Peter. “All Animals are Equal.” Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Ed. Tom Regan and Peter Singer. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1989. 148-62. Spiegel, Marjorie. The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. London and Philadelphia: Heretic Books, 1988. Speigelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986/1991. Torres, Bob. Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights. Edinburgh, Oakland and West Virginia: AK Press, 2007. Weschler, Lawrence. “Pig Perplex.” Lingua France: The Review of Academic Life 11.5 (2001): 6-8. White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web. London: Harper Collins, 1952. Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Abstract:

Introduction Food has always been an essential component of daily life. Today, thinking about food is a much more complicated pursuit than planning the next meal, with food studies scholars devoting their efforts to researching “anything pertaining to food and eating, from how food is grown to when and how it is eaten, to who eats it and with whom, and the nutritional quality” (Duran and MacDonald 234). This is in addition to the work undertaken by an increasingly wide variety of popular culture researchers who explore all aspects of food (Risson and Brien 3): including food advertising, food packaging, food on television, and food in popular fiction. In creating stories, from those works that quickly disappear from bookstore shelves to those that become entrenched in the literary canon, writers use food to communicate the everyday and to explore a vast range of ideas from cultural background to social standing, and also use food to provide perspectives “into the cultural and historical uniqueness of a given social group” (Piatti-Farnell 80). For example in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens, the central character challenges the class system when: “Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity–‘Please, sir, I want some more’” (11). Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) makes a similar point, a little more dramatically, when she declares: “As God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again” (419). Food can also take us into the depths of another culture: places that many of us will only ever read about. Food is also used to provide insight into a character’s state of mind. In Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983) an item as simple as boiled bread tells a reader so much more about Rachel Samstat than her preferred bakery items: “So we got married and I got pregnant and I gave up my New York apartment and moved to Washington. Talk about mistakes [...] there I was, trying to hold up my end in a city where you can’t even buy a decent bagel” (34). There are three ways in which writers can deal with food within their work. Firstly, food can be totally ignored. This approach is sometimes taken despite food being such a standard feature of storytelling that its absence, be it a lonely meal at home, elegant canapés at an impressively catered co*cktail party, or a cheap sandwich collected from a local café, is an obvious omission. Food can also add realism to a story, with many authors putting as much effort into conjuring the smell, taste, and texture of food as they do into providing a backstory and a purpose for their characters. In recent years, a third way has emerged with some writers placing such importance upon food in fiction that the line that divides the cookbook and the novel has become distorted. This article looks at cookbooks and cookery in popular fiction with a particular focus on crime novels. Recipes: Ingredients and Preparation Food in fiction has been employed, with great success, to help characters cope with grief; giving them the reassurance that only comes through the familiarity of the kitchen and the concentration required to fulfil routine tasks: to chop and dice, to mix, to sift and roll, to bake, broil, grill, steam, and fry. Such grief can come from the breakdown of a relationship as seen in Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983). An autobiography under the guise of fiction, this novel is the first-person story of a cookbook author, a description that irritates the narrator as she feels her works “aren’t merely cookbooks” (95). She is, however, grateful she was not described as “a distraught, rejected, pregnant cookbook author whose husband was in love with a giantess” (95). As the collapse of the marriage is described, her favourite recipes are shared: Bacon Hash; Four Minute Eggs; Toasted Almonds; Lima Beans with Pears; Linguine Alla Cecca; Pot Roast; three types of Potatoes; Sorrel Soup; desserts including Bread Pudding, Cheesecake, Key Lime Pie and Peach Pie; and a Vinaigrette, all in an effort to reassert her personal skills and thus personal value. Grief can also result from loss of hope and the realisation that a life long dreamed of will never be realised. Like Water for Chocolate (1989), by Laura Esquivel, is the magical realist tale of Tita De La Garza who, as the youngest daughter, is forbidden to marry as she must take care of her mother, a woman who: “Unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying or dominating […] was a pro” (87). Tita’s life lurches from one painful, unjust episode to the next; the only emotional stability she has comes from the kitchen, and from her cooking of a series of dishes: Christmas Rolls; Chabela Wedding Cake; Quail in Rose Petal Sauce; Turkey Mole; Northern-style Chorizo; Oxtail Soup; Champandongo; Chocolate and Three Kings’s Day Bread; Cream Fritters; and Beans with Chilli Tezcucana-style. This is a series of culinary-based activities that attempts to superimpose normalcy on a life that is far from the everyday. Grief is most commonly associated with death. Undertaking the selection, preparation and presentation of meals in novels dealing with bereavement is both a functional and symbolic act: life must go on for those left behind but it must go on in a very different way. Thus, novels that use food to deal with loss are particularly important because they can “make non-cooks believe they can cook, and for frequent cooks, affirm what they already know: that cooking heals” (Baltazar online). In Angelina’s Bachelors (2011) by Brian O’Reilly, Angelina D’Angelo believes “cooking was not just about food. It was about character” (2). By the end of the first chapter the young woman’s husband is dead and she is in the kitchen looking for solace, and survival, in cookery. In The Kitchen Daughter (2011) by Jael McHenry, Ginny Selvaggio is struggling to cope with the death of her parents and the friends and relations who crowd her home after the funeral. Like Angelina, Ginny retreats to the kitchen. There are, of course, exceptions. In Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), cooking celebrates, comforts, and seduces (Calta). This story of three sisters from South Carolina is told through diary entries, narrative, letters, poetry, songs, and spells. Recipes are also found throughout the text: Turkey; Marmalade; Rice; Spinach; Crabmeat; Fish; Sweetbread; Duck; Lamb; and, Asparagus. Anthony Capella’s The Food of Love (2004), a modern retelling of the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, is about the beautiful Laura, a waiter masquerading as a top chef Tommaso, and the talented Bruno who, “thick-set, heavy, and slightly awkward” (21), covers for Tommaso’s incompetency in the kitchen as he, too, falls for Laura. The novel contains recipes and contains considerable information about food: Take fusilli […] People say this pasta was designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. The spiral fins carry the biggest amount of sauce relative to the surface area, you see? But it only works with a thick, heavy sauce that can cling to the grooves. Conchiglie, on the other hand, is like a shell, so it holds a thin, liquid sauce inside it perfectly (17). Recipes: Dishing Up Death Crime fiction is a genre with a long history of focusing on food; from the theft of food in the novels of the nineteenth century to the utilisation of many different types of food such as chocolate, marmalade, and sweet omelettes to administer poison (Berkeley, Christie, Sayers), the latter vehicle for arsenic receiving much attention in Harriet Vane’s trial in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison (1930). The Judge, in summing up the case, states to the members of the jury: “Four eggs were brought to the table in their shells, and Mr Urquhart broke them one by one into a bowl, adding sugar from a sifter [...he then] cooked the omelette in a chafing dish, filled it with hot jam” (14). Prior to what Timothy Taylor has described as the “pre-foodie era” the crime fiction genre was “littered with corpses whose last breaths smelled oddly sweet, or bitter, or of almonds” (online). Of course not all murders are committed in such a subtle fashion. In Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter (1953), Mary Maloney murders her policeman husband, clubbing him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. The meat is roasting nicely when her husband’s colleagues arrive to investigate his death, the lamb is offered and consumed: the murder weapon now beyond the recovery of investigators. Recent years have also seen more and more crime fiction writers present a central protagonist working within the food industry, drawing connections between the skills required for food preparation and those needed to catch a murderer. Working with cooks or crooks, or both, requires planning and people skills in addition to creative thinking, dedication, reliability, stamina, and a willingness to take risks. Kent Carroll insists that “food and mysteries just go together” (Carroll in Calta), with crime fiction website Stop, You’re Killing Me! listing, at the time of writing, over 85 culinary-based crime fiction series, there is certainly sufficient evidence to support his claim. Of the numerous works available that focus on food there are many series that go beyond featuring food and beverages, to present recipes as well as the solving of crimes. These include: the Candy Holliday Murder Mysteries by B. B. Haywood; the Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle; the Hannah Swensen Mysteries by Joanne Fluke; the Hemlock Falls Mysteries by Claudia Bishop; the Memphis BBQ Mysteries by Riley Adams; the Piece of Cake Mysteries by Jacklyn Brady; the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs; and, the White House Chef Mysteries by Julie Hyzy. The vast majority of offerings within this female dominated sub-genre that has been labelled “Crime and Dine” (Collins online) are American, both in origin and setting. A significant contribution to this increasingly popular formula is, however, from an Australian author Kerry Greenwood. Food features within her famed Phryne Fisher Series with recipes included in A Question of Death (2007). Recipes also form part of Greenwood’s food-themed collection of short crime stories Recipes for Crime (1995), written with Jenny Pausacker. These nine stories, each one imitating the style of one of crime fiction’s greatest contributors (from Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler), allow readers to simultaneously access mysteries and recipes. 2004 saw the first publication of Earthly Delights and the introduction of her character, Corinna Chapman. This series follows the adventures of a woman who gave up a career as an accountant to open her own bakery in Melbourne. Corinna also investigates the occasional murder. Recipes can be found at the end of each of these books with the Corinna Chapman Recipe Book (nd), filled with instructions for baking bread, muffins and tea cakes in addition to recipes for main courses such as risotto, goulash, and “Chicken with Pineapple 1971 Style”, available from the publisher’s website. Recipes: Integration and Segregation In Heartburn (1983), Rachel acknowledges that presenting a work of fiction and a collection of recipes within a single volume can present challenges, observing: “I see that I haven’t managed to work in any recipes for a while. It’s hard to work in recipes when you’re moving the plot forward” (99). How Rachel tells her story is, however, a reflection of how she undertakes her work, with her own cookbooks being, she admits, more narration than instruction: “The cookbooks I write do well. They’re very personal and chatty–they’re cookbooks in an almost incidental way. I write chapters about friends or relatives or trips or experiences, and work in the recipes peripherally” (17). Some authors integrate detailed recipes into their narratives through description and dialogue. An excellent example of this approach can be found in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series by Cleo Coyle, in the novel On What Grounds (2003). When the central protagonist is being questioned by police, Clare Cosi’s answers are interrupted by a flashback scene and instructions on how to make Greek coffee: Three ounces of water and one very heaped teaspoon of dark roast coffee per serving. (I used half Italian roast, and half Maracaibo––a lovely Venezuelan coffee, named after the country’s major port; rich in flavour, with delicate wine overtones.) / Water and finely ground beans both go into the ibrik together. The water is then brought to a boil over medium heat (37). This provides insight into Clare’s character; that, when under pressure, she focuses her mind on what she firmly believes to be true – not the information that she is doubtful of or a situation that she is struggling to understand. Yet breaking up the action within a novel in this way–particularly within crime fiction, a genre that is predominantly dependant upon generating tension and building the pacing of the plotting to the climax–is an unusual but ultimately successful style of writing. Inquiry and instruction are comfortable bedfellows; as the central protagonists within these works discover whodunit, the readers discover who committed murder as well as a little bit more about one of the world’s most popular beverages, thus highlighting how cookbooks and novels both serve to entertain and to educate. Many authors will save their recipes, serving them up at the end of a story. This can be seen in Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef Mystery novels, the cover of each volume in the series boasts that it “includes Recipes for a Complete Presidential Menu!” These menus, with detailed ingredients lists, instructions for cooking and options for serving, are segregated from the stories and appear at the end of each work. Yet other writers will deploy a hybrid approach such as the one seen in Like Water for Chocolate (1989), where the ingredients are listed at the commencement of each chapter and the preparation for the recipes form part of the narrative. This method of integration is also deployed in The Kitchen Daughter (2011), which sees most of the chapters introduced with a recipe card, those chapters then going on to deal with action in the kitchen. Using recipes as chapter breaks is a structure that has, very recently, been adopted by Australian celebrity chef, food writer, and, now fiction author, Ed Halmagyi, in his new work, which is both cookbook and novel, The Food Clock: A Year of Cooking Seasonally (2012). As people exchange recipes in reality, so too do fictional characters. The Recipe Club (2009), by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel, is the story of two friends, Lilly Stone and Valerie Rudman, which is structured as an epistolary novel. As they exchange feelings, ideas and news in their correspondence, they also exchange recipes: over eighty of them throughout the novel in e-mails and letters. In The Food of Love (2004), written messages between two of the main characters are also used to share recipes. In addition, readers are able to post their own recipes, inspired by this book and other works by Anthony Capella, on the author’s website. From Page to Plate Some readers are contributing to the burgeoning food tourism market by seeking out the meals from the pages of their favourite novels in bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world, expanding the idea of “map as menu” (Spang 79). In Shannon McKenna Schmidt’s and Joni Rendon’s guide to literary tourism, Novel Destinations (2009), there is an entire section, “Eat Your Words: Literary Places to Sip and Sup”, dedicated to beverages and food. The listings include details for John’s Grill, in San Francisco, which still has on the menu Sam Spade’s Lamb Chops, served with baked potato and sliced tomatoes: a meal enjoyed by author Dashiell Hammett and subsequently consumed by his well-known protagonist in The Maltese Falcon (193), and the Café de la Paix, in Paris, frequented by Ian Fleming’s James Bond because “the food was good enough and it amused him to watch the people” (197). Those wanting to follow in the footsteps of writers can go to Harry’s Bar, in Venice, where the likes of Marcel Proust, Sinclair Lewis, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and Truman Capote have all enjoyed a drink (195) or The Eagle and Child, in Oxford, which hosted the regular meetings of the Inklings––a group which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien––in the wood-panelled Rabbit Room (203). A number of eateries have developed their own literary themes such as the Peaco*cks Tearooms, in Cambridgeshire, which blends their own teas. Readers who are also tea drinkers can indulge in the Sherlock Holmes (Earl Grey with Lapsang Souchong) and the Doctor Watson (Keemun and Darjeeling with Lapsang Souchong). Alternatively, readers may prefer to side with the criminal mind and indulge in the Moriarty (Black Chai with Star Anise, Pepper, Cinnamon, and Fennel) (Peaco*cks). The Moat Bar and Café, in Melbourne, situated in the basem*nt of the State Library of Victoria, caters “to the whimsy and fantasy of the fiction housed above” and even runs a book exchange program (The Moat). For those readers who are unable, or unwilling, to travel the globe in search of such savoury and sweet treats there is a wide variety of locally-based literary lunches and other meals, that bring together popular authors and wonderful food, routinely organised by book sellers, literature societies, and publishing houses. There are also many cookbooks now easily obtainable that make it possible to re-create fictional food at home. One of the many examples available is The Book Lover’s Cookbook (2003) by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen, a work containing over three hundred pages of: Breakfasts; Main & Side Dishes; Soups; Salads; Appetizers, Breads & Other Finger Foods; Desserts; and Cookies & Other Sweets based on the pages of children’s books, literary classics, popular fiction, plays, poetry, and proverbs. If crime fiction is your preferred genre then you can turn to Jean Evans’s The Crime Lover’s Cookbook (2007), which features short stories in between the pages of recipes. There is also Estérelle Payany’s Recipe for Murder (2010) a beautifully illustrated volume that presents detailed instructions for Pigs in a Blanket based on the Big Bad Wolf’s appearance in The Three Little Pigs (44–7), and Roast Beef with Truffled Mashed Potatoes, which acknowledges Patrick Bateman’s fondness for fine dining in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (124–7). Conclusion Cookbooks and many popular fiction novels are reflections of each other in terms of creativity, function, and structure. In some instances the two forms are so closely entwined that a single volume will concurrently share a narrative while providing information about, and instruction, on cookery. Indeed, cooking in books is becoming so popular that the line that traditionally separated cookbooks from other types of books, such as romance or crime novels, is becoming increasingly distorted. The separation between food and fiction is further blurred by food tourism and how people strive to experience some of the foods found within fictional works at bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world or, create such experiences in their own homes using fiction-themed recipe books. Food has always been acknowledged as essential for life; books have long been acknowledged as food for thought and food for the soul. Thus food in both the real world and in the imagined world serves to nourish and sustain us in these ways. References Adams, Riley. Delicious and Suspicious. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Finger Lickin’ Dead. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Hickory Smoked Homicide. New York: Berkley, 2011. Baltazar, Lori. “A Novel About Food, Recipes Included [Book review].” Dessert Comes First. 28 Feb. 2012. 20 Aug. 2012 ‹http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/8644›. Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. London: Collins, 1929. Bishop, Claudia. Toast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Dread on Arrival. New York: Berkley, 2012. Brady, Jacklyn. A Sheetcake Named Desire. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Cake on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Berkley, 2012. Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Capella, Anthony. The Food of Love. London: Time Warner, 2004/2005. Carroll, Kent in Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Childs, Laura. Death by Darjeeling. New York: Berkley, 2001. –– Shades of Earl Grey. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Blood Orange Brewing. New York: Berkley, 2006/2007. –– The Teaberry Strangler. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Collins, Glenn. “Your Favourite Fictional Crime Moments Involving Food.” The New York Times Diner’s Journal: Notes on Eating, Drinking and Cooking. 16 Jul. 2012. 17 Jul. 2012 ‹http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/your-favorite-fictional-crime-moments-involving-food›. Coyle, Cleo. On What Grounds. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Murder Most Frothy. New York: Berkley, 2006. –– Holiday Grind. New York: Berkley, 2009/2010. –– Roast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Christie, Agatha. A Pocket Full of Rye. London: Collins, 1953. Dahl, Roald. Lamb to the Slaughter: A Roald Dahl Short Story. New York: Penguin, 1953/2012. eBook. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, or, the Parish Boy’s Progress. In Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors, Vol. CCXXIX. Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1838/1839. Duran, Nancy, and Karen MacDonald. “Information Sources for Food Studies Research.” Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 2.9 (2006): 233–43. Ephron, Nora. Heartburn. New York: Vintage, 1983/1996. Esquivel, Laura. Trans. Christensen, Carol, and Thomas Christensen. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Instalments with Recipes, romances and home remedies. London: Black Swan, 1989/1993. Evans, Jeanne M. The Crime Lovers’s Cookbook. City: Happy Trails, 2007. Fluke, Joanne. Fudge Cupcake Murder. New York: Kensington, 2004. –– Key Lime Pie Murder. New York: Kensington, 2007. –– Cream Puff Murder. New York: Kensington, 2009. –– Apple Turnover Murder. New York: Kensington, 2010. Greenwood, Kerry, and Jenny Pausacker. Recipes for Crime. Carlton: McPhee Gribble, 1995. Greenwood, Kerry. The Corinna Chapman Recipe Book: Mouth-Watering Morsels to Make Your Man Melt, Recipes from Corinna Chapman, Baker and Reluctant Investigator. nd. 25 Aug. 2012 ‹http://www.allenandunwin.com/_uploads/documents/minisites/Corinna_recipebook.pdf›. –– A Question of Death: An Illustrated Phryne Fisher Treasury. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2007. Halmagyi, Ed. The Food Clock: A Year of Cooking Seasonally. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2012. Haywood, B. B. Town in a Blueberry Jam. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Town in a Lobster Stew. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Town in a Wild Moose Chase. New York: Berkley, 2012. Hyzy, Julie. State of the Onion. New York: Berkley, 2008. –– Hail to the Chef. New York: Berkley, 2008. –– Eggsecutive Orders. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Buffalo West Wing. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Affairs of Steak. New York: Berkley, 2012. Israel, Andrea, and Nancy Garfinkel, with Melissa Clark. The Recipe Club: A Novel About Food And Friendship. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. McHenry, Jael. The Kitchen Daughter: A Novel. New York: Gallery, 2011. Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. London: Pan, 1936/1974 O’Reilly, Brian, with Virginia O’Reilly. Angelina’s Bachelors: A Novel, with Food. New York: Gallery, 2011. Payany, Estérelle. Recipe for Murder: Frightfully Good Food Inspired by Fiction. Paris: Flammarion, 2010. Peaco*cks Tearooms. Peaco*cks Tearooms: Our Unique Selection of Teas. 23 Aug. 2012 ‹http://www.peaco*ckstearoom.co.uk/teas/page1.asp›. Piatti-Farnell, Lorna. “A Taste of Conflict: Food, History and Popular Culture In Katherine Mansfield’s Fiction.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 79–91. Risson, Toni, and Donna Lee Brien. “Editors’ Letter: That Takes the Cake: A Slice Of Australasian Food Studies Scholarship.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 3–7. Sayers, Dorothy L. Strong Poison. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930/2003. Schmidt, Shannon McKenna, and Joni Rendon. Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009. Shange, Ntozake. Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo: A Novel. New York: St Martin’s, 1982. Spang, Rebecca L. “All the World’s A Restaurant: On The Global Gastronomics Of Tourism and Travel.” In Raymond Grew (Ed). Food in Global History. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999. 79–91. Taylor, Timothy. “Food/Crime Fiction.” Timothy Taylor. 2010. 17 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.timothytaylor.ca/10/08/20/foodcrime-fiction›. The Moat Bar and Café. The Moat Bar and Café: Welcome. nd. 23 Aug. 2012 ‹http://themoat.com.au/Welcome.html›. Wenger, Shaunda Kennedy, and Janet Kay Jensen. The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages that Feature Them. New York: Ballantine, 2003/2005.

Abstract:

Wandering the aisles of my local Woolworths in April this year, I noticed a large number of chocolate bilbies replacing chocolate rabbits. In these harsh economic times it seems that even the Easter bunny is in danger of losing his Easter job. While the changing shape of Easter chocolate may seem to be a harmless affair, the expulsion of the rabbit from Easter celebrations has a darker side. In this paper I look at the campaign to replace the Easter bunny with the Easter bilby, and the implications this mediated conservation move has for living rabbits in the Australian ecosystem. Essential to this discussion is the premise that studies of ecology must take into account the impact of media and culture on environmental issues. Of particular interest is the role of narrative, and the way the stories we tell about rabbits determine how they are treated in real life. While I recognise that the Australian bilby’s struggle for survival is a tale which should be told, I also argue that the vilification of the European-Australian rabbit is part of the native/invasive dualism which has ceased to be helpful, and has instead become a motivator of unproductive violence. In place of this simplified dichotomous narrative, I propose an ethic of "ecological remembrance" to combat the totalising eradication of the European rabbit from the Australian environment and culture. The Bilby vs the Bunny: A Case Study in "Media Selection" Easter Bunny says, ‘Bilby, I want you to have my job.You know about sharing and taking care.I think Australia should have an Easter Bilby.We rabbits have become too greedy and careless.Rabbits must learn from bilbies and other bush creatures’. The lines above are taken from Ali Garnett and Kaye Kessing’s children’s story, Easter Bilby, co-published by the Australian Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation as part of the campaign to replace the Easter bunny with the eco-politically correct Easter bilby. The first chocolate bilbies were made in 1982, but the concept really took off when major chocolate retailer Darrell Lea became involved in 2002. Since this time Haigh’s chocolate, Cadbury, and Pink Lady have also released delicious cocoa natives for consumption, and both Darrell Lea and Haigh’s use their profits to support bilby assistance programs, creating the “pleasant Easter sensation” that “eating a chocolate bilby is helping save the real thing” (Phillips). The Easter bilby campaign is a highly mediated approach to conservation which demonstrates the new biological principle Phil Bagust has recognised as “media selection.” Bagust observes that in our “hybridised global society” it is impossible to separate “the world of genetic selection from the world of human symbolic and material diversity as if they exist in different universes” (8). The Australian rabbit thrives in “natural selection,” having adapted to the Australian environment so successfully it threatens native species and the economic productivity of farmers. But the rabbit loses out in “cultural selection” where it is vilified in the media for its role in environmental degradation. The campaign to conserve the bilby depends, in a large part, on the rabbit’s failures in “media selection”. On Good Friday 2012 Sky News Australia quoted Mike Drinkwater of Wild Life Sydney’s support of the Easter bilby campaign: Look, the reason that we want to highlight the bilby as an iconic Easter animal is, number one, rabbits are a pest in Australia. Secondly, the bilby has these lovely endearing rabbit-like qualities. And thirdly, the bilby is a beautiful, iconic, native animal that is struggling. It is endangered so it’s important that we do all we can to support that. Drinkwater’s appeal to the bilby’s “endearing rabbit-like qualities” demonstrates that it is not the Australian rabbit’s individual embodiment which detracts from its charisma in Australian society. In this paper I will argue that the stories we tell about the European-Australian rabbit’s alienation from Indigenous country diminish the species cultural appeal. These stories are told with passionate conviction to save and protect native flora and fauna, but, too often, this promotion of the native relies on the devaluation of non-native life, to the point where individual rabbits are no longer morally considerable. Such a hierarchical approach to conservation is not only ethically problematic, but can also be ineffective because the native/invasive approach to ecology is overly simplistic. A History of Rabbit Stories In the Easter Bilby children’s book the illustrated rabbit offers to make itself disappear from the “Easter job.” The reason for this act of self-destruction is a despairing recognition of its “greedy and careless” nature, and at the same time, its selfless offer to be replaced by the ecologically conscious Bilby. In this sacrificial gesture is the implicit offering of all rabbit life for the salvation of native ecosystems and animal life. This plot line slots into a much larger series of stories we have been telling about the Australian environment. Libby Robin has observed that settler Australians have always had a love-hate relationship with the native flora and fauna of the continent (6), either devaluing native plants, animals, and ecosystems, or launching into an “overcompensating patriotic strut about the Australian biota” (Robin 9). The colonising dynamic of early Australian society was built on the devaluation of animals such as the bilby. This was reflected in the introduction of feral animals by “acclimatisation societies” and the privileging of “pets” such as cats and dogs over native animals (Plumwood). Alfred Crosby has made the persuasive argument that the invasion of Australia, and other “neo-European” countries, was, necessarily, more-than-human. In his work, Ecological Imperialism, Crosby charts the historical partnership between human European colonisers in Indigenous lands and the “grunting, lowing, neighing, crowing, chirping, snarling, buzzing, self-replicating and world-altering avalanche” (194) of introduced life that they brought with them. In response to this “guilt by association” Australians have reversed the values in the dichotomous colonial dynamic to devalue the introduced and so “empower” the colonised native. In this new “anti-colonial” story, rabbits signify a wound of colonisation which has spread across and infected indigenous country. J. M. Arthur’s (130) analysis of language in relation to colonisation highlights some of the important lexical characteristics in the rabbit stories we now tell. He observes that the rabbits’ impact on the county is described using a vocabulary of contamination: “It is a ‘menace’, a ‘problem’, an ‘infestation’, a ‘nuisance’, a ‘plague’” (170). This narrative of disease encourages a redemptive violence against living rabbits to “cure” the rabbit problem in order to atone for human mistakes in a colonial past. Redemptive Violence in Action Rabbits in Australia have been subject to a wide range of eradication measures over the past century including shooting, the destruction of burrows, poisoning, ferreting, trapping, and the well-known rabbit proof fence in Western Australia. Particularly noteworthy in this slaughter has been the introduction of biological control measures with the release of the savage and painful disease Myxomatosis in late December 1950, followed by the release of the Calicivirus (Rabbit Haemorrhage Disease, or RHD) in 1996. As recently as March 2012 the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries announced a 1.5 million dollar program called “RHD Boost” which is attempting to develop a more effective biological control agent for rabbits who have become immune to the Calicivirus. In this perverse narrative, disease becomes a cure for the rabbit’s contamination of Australian environments. Calicivirus is highly infectious, spreads rapidly, and kills rabbits en masse. Following the release of Calicivirus in 1995 it killed 10 million rabbits in eight weeks (Ponsonby Veterinary Centre). While Calicivirus appears to be more humane than the earlier biological control, Myxomatosis, there are indications that it causes rabbits pain and stress. Victims are described as becoming very quiet, refusing to eat, straining for breath, losing coordination, becoming feverish, and excreting bloody nasal discharge (Heishman, 2011). Post-mortem dissection generally reveals a “pale and mottled liver, many small streaks or blotches on the lungs and an enlarged spleen... small thrombi or blood clots” (Coman 173). Public criticism of the cruel methods involved in killing rabbits is often assuaged with appeals to the greater good of the ecosystem. The Anti-Rabbit research foundation state on their Website, Rabbit-Free Australia, that: though killing rabbits may sound inhumane, wild rabbits are affecting the survival of native Australian plants and animals. It is our responsibility to control them. We brought the European rabbit here in the first place — they are an invasive pest. This assumption of personal and communal responsibility for the rabbit “problem” has a fundamental blind-spot. Arthur (130) observes that the progress of rabbits across the continent is often described as though they form a coordinated army: The rabbit extends its ‘dominion’, ‘dispossesses’ the indigenous bilby, causes sheep runs to be ‘abandoned’ and country ‘forfeited’, leaving the land in ‘ecological tatters’. While this language of battle pervades rabbit stories, humans rarely refer to themselves as invaders into Aboriginal lands. Arthur notes that, by taking responsibility for the rabbit’s introduction and eradication, the coloniser assumes an indigenous status as they defend the country against the exotic invader (134). The apprehension of moral responsibility can, in this sense, be understood as the assumption of settler indigeneity. This does not negate the fact that assuming human responsibility for the native environment can be an act of genuine care. In a country scarred by a history of ecocide, movements like the Easter Bilby campaign seek to rectify the negligent mistakes of the past. The problem is that reactive responses to the colonial devaluation of native life can be unproductive because they preserve the basic structure of the native/invasive dichotomy by simplistically reversing its values, and fail to respond to more complex ecological contexts and requirements (Plumwood). This is also socially problematic because the native/invasive divide of nonhuman life overlays more complex human politics of colonisation in Australia. The Native/Invasive Dualism The bilby is currently listed as an “endangered” species in Queensland and as “vulnerable” nationally. Bilbies once inhabited 70% of the Australian landscape, but now inhabit less than 15% of the country (Save the Bilby Fund). This dramatic reduction in bilby numbers has multiple causes, but the European rabbit has played a significant role in threatening the bilby species by competing for burrows and food. Other threats come from the predation of introduced species, such as feral cats and foxes, and the impact of farmed introduced species, such as sheep and cattle, which also destroy bilby habitats. Because the rabbit directly competes with the bilby for food and shelter in the Australian environment, the bilby can be classed as the underdog native, appealing to that larger Australian story about “the fair go”. It seems that the Easter bilby campaign is intended to level out the threat posed by the highly successful and adaptive rabbit through promoting the bilby in the “cultural selection” stakes. This involves encouraging bilby-love, while actively discouraging love and care for the introduced rabbits which threaten the bilby’s survival. On the Rabbit Free Australia Website, the campaign rationale to replace the Easter bunny with the Easter bilby claims that: Very young children are indoctrinated with the concept that bunnies are nice soft fluffy creatures whereas in reality they are Australia’s greatest environmental feral pest and cause enormous damage to the arid zone. In this statement the lived corporeal presence of individual rabbits is denied as the “soft, fluffy” body disappears behind the environmentally problematic species’ behaviour. The assertion that children are “indoctrinated” to find rabbits love-able, and that this conflicts with the “reality” of the rabbit as environmentally destructive, denies the complexity of the living animal and the multiple possible responses to it. That children find rabbits “fluffy” is not the result of pro-rabbit propaganda, but because rabbits are fluffy! That Rabbit Free Australia could construe this to be some kind of elaborate falsehood demonstrates the disappearance of the individual rabbit in the native/invasive tale of colonisation. Rabbit-Free Australia seeks to eradicate the animal not only from Australian ecosystems, but from the hearts and minds of children who are told to replace the rabbit with the more fitting native bilby. There is no acceptance here of the rabbit as a complex animal that evokes ambivalent responses, being both worthy of moral consideration, care and love, and also an introduced and environmentally destructive species. The native/invasive dualism is a subject of sustained critique in environmental philosophy because it depends on a disjunctive temporal division drawn at the point of European settlement—1788. Environmental philosopher Thom van Dooren points out that the divide between animals who belong and animals who should be eradicated is “fundamentally premised on the reification of a specific historical moment that ignores the changing and dynamic nature of ecologies” (11). Mark Davis et al. explain that the practical value of the native/invasive dichotomy in conservation programs is seriously diminished and in some cases is becoming counterproductive (153). They note that “classifying biota according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology” (153). Instead, they promote a more inclusive approach to conservation which accepts non-native species as part of Australia’s “new nature” (Low). Recent research into wildlife conservation indicates a striking lack of evidence for the case that pest control protects native diversity (see Bergstromn et al., Davis et al., Ewel & Putz, Reddiex & Forsyth). The problematic justification of “killing for conservation” becomes untenable when conservation outcomes are fundamentally uncertain. The mass slaughter which rabbits have been subjected to in Australia has been enacted with the goal of fostering life. This pursuit of creation through destruction, of re-birth through violent death, enacts a disturbing twist where death comes to signal the presence of life. This means, perversely, that a rabbit’s dead body becomes a valuable sign of environmental health. Conservation researchers Ben Reddiex and David M. Forsyth observe that this leads to a situation where environmental managers are “more interested in estimating how many pests they killed rather than the status of biodiversity they claimed to be able to protect” (715). What Other Stories Can We Tell about the Rabbit? With an ecological narrative that is failing, producing damage and death instead of fostering love and life, we are left with the question—what other stories can we tell about the place of the European rabbit in the Australian environment? How can the meaning ecologies of media and culture work in harmony with an ecological consciousness that promotes compassion for nonhuman life? Ignoring the native/invasive distinction entirely is deeply problematic because it registers the ecological history of Australia as continuity, and fails to acknowledge the colonising impact of European settlement on the environment. At the same time, continually reinforcing that divide through pro-invasive or pro-native stories drastically simplifies complex and interconnected ecological systems. Instead of the unproductive native/invasive dualism, ecologists and philosophers alike are suggesting “reconciliatory” approaches to the inhabitants of our shared environments which emphasise ecology as relational rather than classificatory. Evolutionary ecologist Scott P. Carroll uses the term “conciliation biology” as an alternative to invasion biology which focuses on the eradication of invasive species. “Conciliation biology recognises that many non-native species are permanent, that outcomes of native-nonnative interactions will vary depending on the scale of assessment and the values assigned to the biotic system, and that many non-native species will perform positive functions in one or more contexts” (186). This hospitable approach aligns with what Michael Rosensweig has termed “reconciliation ecology”—the modification and diversification of anthropogenic habitats to harbour a wider variety of species (201). Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Mark Bekoff encourages a “compassionate conservation” which avoids the “numbers game” of species thinking where certain taxonomies are valued above others and promotes approaches which “respect all life; treat individuals with respect and dignity; and tread lightly when stepping into the lives of animals”(24). In a similar vein environmental philosopher Deborah Bird Rose offers the term “Eco-reconciliation”, to describe a mode of “living generously with others, singing up relationships so that we all flourish” (Wild Dog 59). It may be that the rabbit cannot live in harmony with the bilby, and in this situation I am unsure of what a conciliation approach to ecology might look like in terms of managing both of these competing species. But I am sure what it should not look like if we are to promote approaches to ecology and conservation which avoid the simplistic dualism of native/invasive. The devaluation of rabbit life to the point of moral inconsiderability is fundamentally unethical. By classifying certain lives as “inappropriate,” and therefore expendable, the process of rabbit slaughter is simply too easy. The idea that the rabbit should disappear is disturbing in its abstract approach to these living, sentient creatures who share with us both place and history. A dynamic understanding of ecology dissipates the notion of a whole or static “nature.” This means that there can be no simple or comprehensive directives for how humans should interact with their environments. One of the most insidious aspects of the native/invasive divide is the way it makes violent death appear inevitable, as though rabbits must be culled. This obscures the many complex and contingent choices which determine the fate of nonhuman life. Understanding the dynamism of ecology requires an acceptance that nature does not provide simple prescriptive responses to problems, and instead “people are forced to choose the kind of environment they want” (189) and then take actions to engender it. This involves difficult decisions, one of which is culling to maintain rabbit numbers and facilitate environmental resilience. Living within a world of “discordant harmonies”, as Daniel Botkin evocatively describes it, environmental decisions are necessarily complex. The entanglement of ecological systems demands that we reject simplistic dualisms which offer illusory absolution from the consequences of the difficult choices humans make about life, ecologies, and how to manage them. Ecological Remembrance The vision of a rabbit-free Australia is unrealistic. As organisation like the Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation pursue this future ideal, they eradicate rabbits from the present, and seek to remove them from the past by replacing them culturally with the more suitable bilby. Culled rabbits lie rotting en masse in fields, food for no one, and even their cultural impact in human society is sought to be annihilated and replaced with more appropriate native creatures. The rabbits’ deaths do not turn back to life in transformative and regenerative processes that are ecological and cultural, but rather that death becomes “an event with no future” (Rose, Wild Dog 25). This is true oblivion, as the rabbit is entirely removed from the world. In this paper I have made a case for the importance of stories in ecology. I have argued that the kinds of stories we tell about rabbits determines how we treat them, and so have positioned stories as an essential part of an ecological system which takes “cultural selection” seriously. In keeping with this emphasis on story I offer to the conciliation push in ecological thinking the term “ecological remembrance” to capture an ethic of sharing time while sharing space. This spatio-temporal hospitality is focused on maintaining heterogeneous memories and histories of all beings who have impacted on the environment. In Deborah Bird Rose’s terms this is a “recuperative work” which commits to direct dialogical engagement with the past that is embedded in the present (Wild Country 23). In this sense it is a form of recuperation that promotes temporal and ecological continuity. Eco-remembrance aligns with dynamic understandings of ecology because it is counter-linear. Instead of approaching the past as a static idyll, preserved and archived, ecological remembrance celebrates the past as an ongoing, affective presence which is lived and performed. Ecological remembrance, applied to the European rabbit in Australia, would involve rejecting attempts to extricate the rabbit from Australian environments and cultures. It would seek acceptance of the rabbit as part of Australia’s “new nature” (Low), and aim for recognition of the rabbit’s impact on human society as part of dynamic multi-species ecologies. In this sense ecological remembrance of the rabbit directly opposes the goal of the Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia to eradicate the European rabbit from Australian environment and culture. On the Rabbit Free Australia website, the section on biological controls states that “the point is not how many rabbits are killed, but how many are left behind”. The implication is that the millions upon millions of rabbit lives extinguished have vanished from the earth, and need not be remembered or considered. However, as Deborah Rose argues, “all deaths matter” (Wild Dog 21) and “no death is a mere death” (Wild Dog 22). Every single rabbit is an individual being with its own unique life. To deny this is tantamount to claiming that each rabbit that dies from shooting or poisoning is the same rabbit dying again and again. Rose has written that “death makes claims upon all of us” (Wild Dog 19). These are claims of ethics and compassion, a claim that “we look into the eyes of the dying and not flinch, that we reach out to hold and to help” (Wild Dog 20). This claim is a duty of remembrance, a duty to “bear witness” (Wiesel 160) to life and death. The Nobel Peace Prize winning author, Elie Wiesel, argued that memory is a reconciliatory force that creates bonds as mass annihilation seeks to destroy them. Memory ensures that no life becomes truly life-less as it wrests the victims of mass slaughter from “oblivion” and allows the dead to “vanquish death” (21). In a continent inhabited by dead rabbits—a community of the dead—remembering these lost individuals and their lost lives is an important task for making sure that no death is a mere death. An ethic of ecological remembrance follows this recuperative aim. References Arthur, Jay M. The Default Country: A Lexical Cartography of Twentieth-Century Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003. Bagust, Phil. “Cuddly Koalas, Beautiful Brumbies, Exotic Olives: Fighting for Media Selection in the Attention Economy.” “Imaging Natures”: University of Tasmania Conference Proceedings (2004). 25 April 2012 ‹www.utas.edu.au/arts/imaging/bagust.pdf› Bekoff, Marc. “First Do No Harm.” New Scientist (28 August 2010): 24 – 25. Bergstrom, Dana M., Arko Lucieer, Kate Kiefer, Jane Wasley, Lee Belbin, Tore K. Pederson, and Steven L. Chown. “Indirect Effects of Invasive Species Removal Devastate World Heritage Island.” Journal of Applied Ecology 46 (2009): 73– 81. Botkin, Daniel. B. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Carroll, Scott. P. “Conciliation Biology: The Eco-Evolutionary Management of Permanently Invaded Biotic Systems.” Evolutionary Applications 4.2 (2011): 184 – 99. Coman, Brian. Tooth and Nail: The Story of the Rabbit in Australia. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company, 1999. Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 – 1900. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Davis, Mark., Matthew Chew, Richard Hobbs, Ariel Lugo, John Ewel, Geerat Vermeij, James Brown, Michael Rosenzweig, Mark Gardener, Scott Carroll, Ken Thompson, Steward Pickett, Juliet Stromberg, Peter Del Tredici, Katharine Suding, Joan Ehrenfield, J. Philip Grime, Joseph Mascaro and John Briggs. “Don’t Judge Species on their Origins.” Nature 474 (2011): 152 – 54. Ewel, John J. and Francis E. Putz. “A Place for Alien Species in Ecosystem Restoration.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2.7 (2004): 354-60. Forsyth, David M. and Ben Reddiex. “Control of Pest Mammals for Biodiversity Protection in Australia.” Wildlife Research 33 (2006): 711–17. Garnett, Ali, and Kaye Kessing. Easter Bilby. Department of Environment and Heritage: Kaye Kessing Productions, 2006. Heishman, Darice. “VHD Factsheet.” House Rabbit Network (2011). 15 June 2012 ‹http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/vhd.shtml› Low, Tim. New Nature: Winners and Losers in Wild Australia. Melbourne: Penguin, 2002. Phillips, Sara. “How Eating Easter Chocolate Can Save Endangered Animals.” ABC Environment (1 April 2010). 15 June 2011 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/04/01/2862039.htm› Plumwood, Val. “Decolonising Australian Gardens: Gardening and the Ethics of Place.” Australian Humanities Review 36 (2005). 15 June 2012 ‹http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-July-2005/09Plumwood.html› Ponsonby Veterinary Centre. “Rabbit Viral Hemorrhagic Disease (VHD).” Small Pets. 26 May 2012 ‹http://www.petvet.co.nz/small_pets.cfm?content_id=85› Robin, Libby. How a Continent Created a Nation. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2007. Rose, Deborah Bird. Reports From a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2004. ——-. Wild Dog Dreaming: Love and Extinction. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2011. Rosenzweig, Michael. L. “Reconciliation Ecology and the Future of Species Diversity.” Oryx 37.2 (2003): 194 – 205. Save the Bilby Fund. “Bilby Fact Sheet.” Easterbilby.com.au (2003). 26 May 2012 ‹http://www.easterbilby.com.au/Project_material/factsheet.asp› Van Dooren, Thom. “Invasive Species in Penguin Worlds: An Ethical Taxonomy of Killing for Conservation.” Conservation and Society 9.4 (2011): 286 – 98. Wiesel, Elie. From the Kingdom of Memory. New York: Summit Books, 1990.