The book contains fifteen chapters—two contributed by HSU professors—exploring all aspects of food studies. Topics include community gardens, the slow food movement, First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, and cannibalism.
The book is useful to readers interested in communication, food studies, environment and community, media influence and social movements, Bruner said. “More and more academics and practitioners around the globe are becoming involved in food issues and food studies. In just three months, our book already has been acquired by 70 major libraries worldwide, including libraries in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, in addition to the United States.”
The collection begins with a historic chapter entitled “The Operations of Nature” from Sir Albert Howard’s 1947 book The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture. An English botanist and author, Howard is considered a pioneer of the early organic farming movement.
Bruner and Laura Hahn, a professor in HSU’s Department of Communication, explore vegetarianism and veganism in a chapter entitled “Politics on Your Plate: Building and Burning Bridges across Organic, Vegetarian and Vegan Discourse.” The authors use rhetorical analysis and case studies to examine why the vegetarian and vegan movements failed to achieve the same traction as the organic movement.
HSU Communication Professor Maxwell Schnurer also contributed a chapter entitled “Parsing Poverty: Farm Subsidies and American Farmland Trust.” In it, Schnurer explores subsidies and “greenwashing,” a type of false environmental marketing.
Bruner, whose first book was Stop, Look, and Listen (1996), was honored in 1998 with the publication of his essay (with Max Oelschlaeger) on “Rhetoric, Environmentalism, and Environmental Ethics,” in the volume Landmark Essays on Rhetoric and the Environment. His recent work includes a book chapter, “A Critical Crisis Rhetoric of Seafood,” which appeared in Food as Communication (2011).
According to Bruner, his scholarly activities and interdisciplinary work enrich his teaching at HSU. “I am so grateful for my students, for my colleagues, and for the support of the provost and the dean during my 11 years at HSU,” Bruner said. He also praised the work of Co-Editor Joshua Frye, assistant professor of Communication Studies at the State University of New York Oneonta.
The Rhetoric of Food can be purchased via Routledge, on Amazon.com, and through the HSU bookstore. It is also available on reserve at the HSU Library.