Writings
PUBLICATIONS
- Editorial "Space Cookbook: Mission to the Future" in Science Fiction Studies - Special Issue located in the section titled "Roundtable:SF in the Kitchen" - an examination of International Space Station foodways, alternative food technology/sources, and speculative fiction URL LINK for https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/abstracts/a147.htm#roundtable
- Book Review for Dying to Eat: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Food, Death, and the Afterlife (Candi K. Cann, ed. University Press of Kentucky, 2017) Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture; Vol 7 No 1 (2019): Winter 2019-2020 URL LINK for .pdf https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/digest/article/view/30252
- Parade History (URL LINK for www.ParadeHistory.com) Twenty plus essays about parades, processions, marches, walks, demonstrations, promenades, motorcades, pilgrimages, and related festive events in California and worldwide. Includes numerous fieldwork photos and some secondary topics related to science fiction, environmental awareness, cultural appreciation, protests marches, and so on.
- H-NET academic humanities site for celebration studies (Editor/writer/photo archivist 2017-2019) with article links on H-Net Celebration (2017-2019) OR URL LINK to H-NET academic humanities site. Photo and written essays that cover ethnography, satire, anthropology, folklore, film studies, material culture, law and other perspectives as it relates to a variety of topics. Topics explored include:
- outer space
- social movements
- commercial and movie screen parodies
- trademarked costumes
- phenomenology
- nudity and utopian ideas
- material culture
- cultural symbolism
- specific fieldwork with Hare Krishna Festival of Chariots, Topless Day Parade, Japanese Nisei Week Grand Parade, Annual Bridge USA Natsu Masuri - Japanese mikoshi parade, Kingdom Day parade, Women's March...
CONFERENCES
- Conference paper titled: “Southern California Festive Foodways: Altruism, Entrepreneurialism, and Cultural Affirmation" --- Venue: 11th International Conference on Food Studies; Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark (October 28 -30, 2021) --- Abstract: While festive gatherings bring communities together, it is the foodways of these events that offer an opportunity to garner more insights about culture and people. The paper focuses on the role of food and drinks in multiple community festivals and parades in the Southern California region of the United States pre-pandemic cancellations as they reveal altruistic, entrepreneurial, and cultural beliefs, practices, and influences. Ethnographic methods (i.e., interviews, photography, video recordings, and participant observation in cultural settings) were employed to document what is prepared, shared, and sold, along with inquiries about personal motivation in the Bangladesh Day Parade and Festival, Sikh Baisakhi Celebration, Taste of Ecuador Food Festival & Parade, Little Saigon Westchester Tet Parade, South Bay Greek Festival, Central American Independence Parade, Kingdom Day Parade, East L.A. Mexican Independence Day, Topanga Days Parade, and Torrance Armed Forces Day Parade.
- Conference paper titled: "Eating Meals During a Pandemic/Epidemic: How Science Fiction Brings Food Commensality, Culture, and Taboos to the Experience" --- Venue: Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture; Cappadocia University, Mustafapaşa Campus, 50420 Ürgüp/Nevşehir/Turkey --- Keynote speakers: Kim Stanley Robinson, Larissa Lai, Maggie Gee, Elizabeth Outka, Raffaella Baccolini, and Tom Moylan (January 13-15, 2021) --- Abstract: Exploring how the meal, a familiar activity in which a person or group of people consume food and drinks during a specific time, is re-imagined in six science fiction stories centered on pandemics and epidemics in various countries. The stories included are Tóxico (movie, Argentina, 2020), #Alive (movie, South Korea, 2020), Perfect Sense (movie, U.K., 2011), The Rain (series, Denmark, 2018), Severance (book, U.S., 2018), and “So Much Cooking” (short story, U.S., 2015). Each of these selected science fiction stories introduce a fictional virus that upturns the world of its characters as it stirs fear, insecurity, suspicion, and other unexpected responses in a world where eating a meal becomes a familiar/unfamiliar experience. I will connect these stories through themes of food ingredients, sharing and commensality, and social behaviors associated with preparation, presentation, consumption, avoidance, and taboo breaking. For example, the theme of commensality and sharing in the movie #Alive about a virus that causes the infected to become zombies is depicted through two non- infected characters preparing and eating noodles while describing how they like to customize the dish. This act suggests the building of friendship, trust, and solidarity. Later, they encounter a man who saves them from an attack in the hallway and generously shares his food and water supply in a time when resources are scarce. Unfortunately, it is a deceptive gesture; the man is attempting to gain their trust so he can feed them to his infected wife. These scenes can also be read as displays of cultural foodways and means to better understand human expectations and characters’ states of mind.
INTERVIEW
LINK to 2015 article is subscriber protected currently so I've uploaded pages in slideshow
WRITING SAMPLES to DOWNLOAD
| bookreview-digest-food-tgraham.pdf |
| sfs-futurefood-digitalversion.pdf |
| paradehistory-ecuador-photoessay-compressed.pdf |
| wirefreesoft-black_mirror_and_your_internet_ranking.pdf |
| wirefreesoft-creating_websites_for_visually_impaired.pdf |
| paradehistory-fewpics-environmental_messages_in_parades_and_marches_–_parade_history.pdf |
| paradehistory-altruism_during_sikh_baisakhi_celebration_-_parade_history-fewer_pics.pdf |
| paradehistory-a_worlds_fair_pavilion_moment_at_the_sri_lanka_day_expo_and_parade_-_parade_history-fewpics.pdf |
| h-net-trademarked_costumes_in_parades-_phenomenologically_speaking_|_h-celebration_|_h-net.pdf |
