Over the past ten weeks I have consumed multiple genres of food fiction and its representation of and influences on culture, family and community, as well as the relationship between food and pleasure and reading and pleasure. This ILC tied up the work I have done with Sarah Williams this year by allowing me to apply and experience some of the ideals around digital reading and physical reading in context, and continue exploring my own relationship to food, pleasure, and social emotional well-being. This ILC was also a part of my personal goals surrounding reading and bringing enjoyment back to my academics, and I used that for a multi-dimensional comparison of healing from food traumas versus academic traumas which I presented to Sarah Williams first and second year students in my week 10 presentation.
Over the course of this ILC I read seven novels with genres including general fiction, historical fiction, magical realism, horror and dystopian fiction, and YA fiction. As well as annotating for and reflecting on the books representation of food and cooking and it’s relationship to the plot and characters, I also evaluated my learning process throughout the quarter, noting where it changed and where I experienced pleasure and held value. I am overall very pleased with the results of this project, I have developed a new level of self awareness in education, as well as exposed myself to a variety of literature that presents food and cooking in drastically different scenarios and a wide variety of consequences. It has left me questioning the historical and psychological reasoning behind human healing practices, and how cultural philosophy impacts food and policy. I hope to continue this kind of work for the rest of my time at Evergreen, and has convinced me to look further into grad school and writing curriculum.