Eating Their Words : Cannibalism and the Boundaries of Cultural Identity

Examines the figure of the cannibal as it relates to cultural identity in a wide range of literary and cultural texts. Linking cannibalism to issues of difference crucial to contemporary literary criticism and theory, the essays included here cover material from a variety of contexts and historical periods and approach their subjects from a range of critical perspectives. Along with such canonical works as The Odyssey, The Faerie Queene, and Robinson Crusoe, the contributors also discuss lesser known works, including a version of the Victorian melodrama Sweeny Todd, as well as contemporary postcolonial and postmodern novels by Margaret Atwood and Ian Wedde. Taken together, these essays re-theorize the relationship between cannibalism and cultural identity, making cannibalism meaningful within new critical and cultural horizons.Contributors include Mark Buchan, Santiago Colas, Marlene Goldman, Brian Greenspan, Kristen Guest, Minaz Jooma, Robert Viking O'Brien, Geoffrey Sanborn, and Julia M. Wright. Cannibalism and the boundaries of identity / Kristen Guest Food for thought / Mark Buchan Cannibalism in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen, Ireland, and the Americas / Robert Viking O'Brien Robinson Crusoe Inc(orporates): domestic economy, incest, and the trope of cannibalism / Minaz Jooma Devouring the disinherited / Julia M. Wright Are you being served? cannibalism, class, and victorian melodrama / Kristen Guest From Caliban to Cronus, a critique of cannibalism as metaphor for Cuban revolutionary culture / Santiago Colás Cannibals at the core / Brian Greenspan Margaret Atwood's Wilderness tips / Marlene Goldman The missed encounter, cannibalism and the literary critic / Geoffrey Sanborn.

portrayals Of Anthropophagy Have Conventionally Been Thought Of As A Particular Author's Or Period's Effort To Sensationalize The Other. But Here Scholars Of Literature From Various Cultures And Periods Rethink How Such Expression Helps Produce, Contest, And Negotiate Identity As Subjects.

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Kristen Guest is Lecturer at the University of Toronto at Scarborough.