Crip Appetites: American Gastrodystopias in the Graphic Series Chew

Marta  Usiekniewicz

Crip Appetites: American Gastrodystopias in the Graphic Series Chew

Publication date: 17.03.2021

Arts & Cultural Studies Review, 2021, Issue 1 (47) Zarządzanie w antropocenie, pp. 150 - 165

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.21.009.13463

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Crip Appetites: American Gastrodystopias in the Graphic Series Chew

Abstract

I propose a serious exploration of food and eating anxieties of late capitalism as expressed in the imagined gastrodystopia of Chew, a graphic series by John Layman and Rob Guillory featuring a cannibal detective. Viewed as a reflection on the interweaving of fears associated with the disabling impact of globalization, climate crisis, exploitation of (human) resources, as well as discourses of crises of masculinity and collapse of social bonds in neoliberalism, Chew present a new way of conceptualizing gender, consumption, waste, and community through characters that both conform to and subvert conventional gender types featured in comics and the eating practices implicitly or explicitly associated with them. Using concepts and frameworks from critical eating studies, gender studies, new materialism and crip theory, I examine the ways in which cannibalism may be used to comment on consumption and identity.

* This article is a result of a research project entitled “Crip Appetites: Teoria crip i krytyczne badania nad jedzeniem w amerykańskim komiksie” carried out at ASC UW and funded by State Fund for Rehabilitation of Disabled People (PFRON). Project no. BEA/000044/BF/D.

Keywords

Cannibalism, science fiction, masculinity, food and eating, gender, waste

References

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Information

Information: Arts & Cultural Studies Review, 2021, Issue 1 (47) Zarządzanie w antropocenie, pp. 150 - 165

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.21.009.13463

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

Crip Appetites: American Gastrodystopias in the Graphic Series Chew

English:

Crip Appetites: American Gastrodystopias in the Graphic Series Chew

Authors

Marta Usiekniewicz

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4416-4619

University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Published at: 17.03.2021

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Percentage share of authors:

Marta Usiekniewicz (Author) - 100%

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English

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