Abstract

Food is culture, habit, tradition, and ritual. The act of eating is a vital part in society’s life, and not only because of the fisiologic necessity of easing one’s hunger. It is also embodied with sociocultural meanings. We present a comparative history study of the ancient greeks diet in the poems of Homer and Euripides. We defend that their discourses function as a way of reafirming and constructing their society’s ideals of identity and otherness. Based on Marcel Detienne’s methodology proposal for a Comparative History, our works starts with the category “diet”, which enables the forming of the comparable “eating habits as identity creators” in Homer’s and Euripides’ works. With the help methodology of Dominique Maingueneau’s Discrouse Analysis we demonstrate the similarities, differences, ruptures, continuities and singularities between the poets’ discourses, in archaic and classical periods, touching aspects of gender and otherness.

Presenters

Stéphanie Madureira
Student, PhD, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Food, Politics, and Cultures

KEYWORDS

Ancient, Greece, Food, Cuisine, Gender, Identity, Homer, Euripides

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