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Educational Dimensions of School Lunch pp 35–57Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Postmodern Dietetic: Reclaiming the Body Through the Practice of Alimentary Freedom

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Abstract

In this chapter I explore the relationship between school lunch and the eating body. In particular, I argue that two technologies of power apposite to the practice of lunch have effectuated docile, disciplined bodies—viz. the architectonics of practice and the spectacularized status of food. Concerning the architectonics of lunch, I examine these technologies as a microphysics of power that operates in constant, uninterrupted applications on the body and its movements at lunch. Concerning the second technology of power, I argue that over-production and a reification of the surface of things has resulted in an ineluctable march of hyperreal foodstuffs—in commercial foods unmoored from former meanings, food institutions, and dining experiences. As an ameliorant, I begin to theorize what I call alimentary freedom—a reconstitution of the raison d’être of lunch and a repositioning of the eater.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Matthew T. Lewis

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  1. Matthew T. Lewis
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Suzanne Rice

  2. Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

    A.G. Rud

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Lewis, M.T. (2018). Postmodern Dietetic: Reclaiming the Body Through the Practice of Alimentary Freedom. In: Rice, S., Rud, A. (eds) Educational Dimensions of School Lunch. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72517-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72517-8_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72516-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72517-8

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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