Behind the Scenes: How I Wrote My First Academic Book
This is the story of how I wrote my first book—Diners, Dudes & Diets: How Gender & Power Collide in Food Media & Culture—out November 2020 from UNC Press.
All posts tagged: writing
9 Writing Productivity Tips from Food Historian, Ken Albala
Consider these writing productivity tips from food historian Ken Albala, author or editor of 25 books to date.
Publishing in Food Studies Journals: An Index
Food studies is an ever-expanding field with an increasing number of discipline specific and related peer-reviewed journals. As you seek out the right “home” for your food studies scholarship, consider this list of peer-reviewed publications, organized alphabetically. Please note that this list was originally compiled in June 2016 and all links were updated in September 2019. The last update was made in June 2021. I endeavor to keep the list up-to-date, adding journals as folks alert me to them, but if you find something amiss, please feel free to comment or send me a note! Agriculture and Food Security is an open-access journal that addresses global food security with a particular focus on research that may inform more sustainable agriculture and food systems that better address local, regional, national and/or global food and nutritional insecurity. The journal considers contributions across academic disciplines, including agricultural, ecological, environmental, nutritional, and socio-economic sciences, public health, and policy. Agriculture and Human Values is the journal of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society. The journal publishes interdisciplinary research that critically examines the values, relationships, conflicts, and …
Presenting My Students’ Final Project in Food + Gender
I’m thrilled to share my students’ final project, an e-journal that culminates our course, “Food and Gender in U.S. Popular Culture,” at Brown University. In this seminar-style course, twenty students (mostly in their first and second years of study) completed four main writing assignments — a cookbook analysis (which I blogged about here), a mini media exhibit, an interview profile, and a restaurant review — all of which engaged the themes of food and gender. For the final project, students worked to revise one of these assignments for inclusion in the class e-journal. We invite you to start with the About page to learn more about the class and our writing. As you will read, these writing assignments expect (and deliver!) clear and sophisticated argument, as well as what we called “compulsively readable” prose. Course readings included not only academic food studies texts, but also a full serving of food writing, providing a taste of different styles and formats. Throughout the semester, we aimed to craft not only compelling thesis statements, but also at least one “aspirational sentence” …
Social Media Lessons for Aspiring Public Intellectuals
I attended several fascinating panels at the 2016 OAH Annual Meeting here in Providence this past weekend (check out #OAH2016 on Twitter), and also learned some very helpful lessons from “Navigating Social Media and Traditional Media,” organized and chaired by seasoned publicist Sarah Russo. (She also shared her social media knowledge at least year’s OAH on the panel, “Media Training for Historians,” which you can watch here). Her three fellow panelists at this year’s conference were: Clay Risen, Senior Editor, Op-Ed page, New York Times Max Larkin, Producer, Radio Open Source with Chris Lydon Donna Harrington-Leuker, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Salve Regina University Here are the top five things I learned about how academics can be accessible public intellectuals on social media, which is increasingly becoming part and parcel of what we do: Best social media platforms for academics: Twitter to amplify, Medium to develop portfolio of pieces w different voices/audiences. #OAH2016 — Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) April 9, 2016 Advice from @jmlarkin: Maintain an authentic, concrete digital footprint so media can find you. #OAH2016 #oah16_216 — Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) April 9, 2016 Need …
Teaching Food Studies, Cookbooks & Writing
How do cookbooks speak? What stories do they tell—and whose? What do cookbooks reveal about power and how it operates? How do cookbooks communicate and construct gender? These are some of the questions my students and I have pondered lately in our course “Food and Gender in U.S. Popular Culture” at Brown University. For our first assignment, students analyzed how cookbooks prescribe and transgress conventional gender roles. A uniquely interdisciplinary field, food studies scholarship often employs various methods, but the close reading of cookbooks is one method that approaches universality. I’m working with a thoughtful and engaged group of 20 mostly first- and second-year students. While most had read and used cookbooks for cooking, few had previously considered them as elements of popular culture, as valuable historical evidence, as prescriptive literature that shape notions of gender, or as sources in which the so-often-silenced voices of women and people of color can be heard. In an effort to fully scaffold and support our work with cookbooks, we first did some reading. While there are many incredible texts I could have assigned, we read from: Jessamyn Neuhaus. …
Announcing the Graduate Journal of Food Studies 2.2 & the End of Food Puns
Look no further for groundbreaking scholarship, throught-provking book reviews, and stirring art from emerging scholars. The third issue of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies (volume 2, no. 2) is now live online. The issue starts with editor-in-chief Carla Cevasco’s insightful letter, “I hate food puns,” which urges us all to refrain from foodie figurative language in an effort to bolster the intellectual foundations and popular perceptions of our field. Gone be the “food fights,” “seats at the table,” and, sigh, “food for thought.” I especially love her assertion that these phrases make food studies appear “fun” and approachable, but in the end, “Food studies should not be easy.” Our topics may be quotidian. That’s what makes them powerful and meaningful. Our conferences and events may consider eating and drinking primary. That’s experiential learning and intellectual embodiment, purposeful commensality and mindful consumption. Our work speaks to students and the public. That’s how our field will continue to expand and survive. Food studies is not a passing fad nor a field of inquiry with soft edges. As Carla argues so well, its acuity …
Cheers & Tears: 5 More Reasons for Academics to Blog
This summer marks my second year of blogging, so I thought I’d celebrate by adding to the five lessons I learned in my first year. 1. Blogging connects you to lay readers and fellow scholars. While having my post, “Tofu & Tapenade? The Unspoken Rules of Football,” Freshly Pressed in January brought 600 new followers my way, blogging has also connected me more closely with just a handful of folks in a meaningful way. Jan Whitaker (who blogs at Restraunt-ing Through History) and I routinely read and comment on one another’s work, which made finally meeting her in person at this summer’s ASFS conference all the more enjoyable. Blogging is also one of the ways I connected with Rachel Lauden, famed food historian, who also blogs and tweets up a storm. If you put your work out there, not only does someone other than your mom and prof read it, people who you cite, admire, and would like to work with can read it too—and that’s when the magic happens. 2. Blogging provides a publication platform that’s always accepting submissions. I (mostly) love writing papers from scratch to fulfill specific CFPs …
Academe Amuse-Bouche: Expanding the Menu of Academic Publishing
I had the opportunity to attend the Essay in Public conference here at Brown University earlier this week at which speakers and participants discussed a full host of topics related to how we can best bring longform writing and dense content (such as the bulk of work created by academics) to the public. [Update: I summarized all of my live tweeting here. And yes, Storify really is as neat as they say.] At one point in the day, we discussed and re-articulated the very meaning of “the public,” as not only an audience with whom many of us as public intellectuals hope to engage, but also a grouping of individuals that contains the fantasy of accessibility and embodies the breaking down of hierarchies, limits, and borders. Part of my own aspiration with this blog is to connect with just such a public of readers, near and far, through my work, which I strive to communicate in jargon-free and hopefully-at-least-minorly-entertaining prose. A truly satiating day, this conference explored far more than audience, connectivity, and content. In this particular post, however, I’m chewing on the idea that …
How to Write a Statement of Purpose
When I applied to PhD programs, I didn’t really find the advice I was seeking for how to write a statement of purpose, so I wrote this post in the hope that it might help someone in a similar position. Folks will tell you that your statement of purpose is the most important part of your PhD application and they’re right. While your transcripts might demonstrate your past academic success and your letters of recommendation can speak volumes, especially if written by significant scholars in your field, no piece of your application package can make more of an impact than your statement. It is your opportunity to clearly and succinctly discuss your past and future research goals in an interesting way. From this document (as well as the rest of your application package), an admissions committee will decide if you are the right “fit” for their program. While you’re determining which programs are the right fit for you, you can simultaneously put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and start the first of many drafts …
Why Writing an Academic Blog Makes Me Feel Like Sally Field: 5 Things I’ve Learned in My First Year
In a post last year, the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Impact of Social Sciences blog argued that blogging is one of the best things that academics can do. As I celebrate my first year of blogging this month, I would have to agree. While I have a long way to go, here are five things I’ve learned while blogging on my thoughts and research in food studies, nutrition, and public health.
Emily Contois 