Jennifer Mallette, associate professor and chair in the Department of Writing Studies, recently had an article published in the Composition Studies Independent Academic Journal. The article, written in collaboration with several students, described a course she designed, entitled, “Cooking Up Rhetoric: Exploring Rhetoric, Culture and Identity through Food-Based Texts”.
The special topics course for the Bachelor of Arts in Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication degree at Boise State University allows instructors to cover a range of topics related to writing studies, as long as the course addresses the program learning outcomes that focus on genres, audiences, craft of writing and inquiry.
As an avid home cook and consumer of food media, as well as a feminist and scholar who studies gender in technical communication, Mallette determined that food could provide a lens to address these outcomes. Food texts enable an exploration of rhetoric through lived experiences, particularly through Indigenous, immigrant and non-European/non-white perspectives. Thus, the course’s readings and content provided avenues for all students to explore the rhetoric of food but sought to disrupt whiteness and patriarchy through the texts and rhetorical approaches examined.