Food Studies in Latin American Literature: Perspectives on the Gastronarrative, edited by Vanesa Miseres, an associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Rocío Del Aguila of Wichita State University has won the first place in the Best Culturally Themed Academic Book and third place in the Best Non-Fiction Multi-Authored Book category at the International Latino Book Awards. The awards ceremony was celebrated in Los Angeles, California, on August 19-20, 2022.
The International Latino Book Awards (ILBA) are annual awards given to authors, translators, and illustrators for books written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Founded in 1997, the ILBA is a nonprofit organization based in California.
Food Studies in Latin American Literature presents a timely collection of essays analyzing a wide array of Latin American narratives through the lens of food studies. Topics explored include potato and maize in colonial and contemporary global narratives; the role of cooking in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s poetics; the centrality of desire in twentieth-century cooking writing by women; the relationship among food, recipes, and national identity; the role of food in travel narratives; and the impact of advertisements on domestic roles.
The book was published by the University of Arkansas Press under its Food and Foodways series in December 2021.
Earlier this year, Miseres also received the 2022 LARR–University of Florida Article Award for “Materiales de viaje: La función de los objetos en las fotografías, ensayos y diario personal de Alice Dixon Le Plongeon en Yucatán” published in LARR (Latin American Research Review) volume 56. LARR is the interdisciplinary journal by LASA (Latin American Studies Association).
The LARR–University of Florida Best Article Award is presented at each LASA International Congress to the best research article published by the Latin American Research Review (LARR) during the past calendar year. The award covers articles published by LARR in all disciplines and in any language.
She also, along with anthropologist Vania Smith-Oka, received a three-year grant from Humanities Without Walls, a consortium that supports collaborative research and scholarship, for a project that will encourage Latinx women who have suffered violence during pregnancy and childbirth to share their experiences through art and literature.
"The Latinx Obstetric Violence Project: Art and Literature as Tools of Reciprocal and Redistributive Knowledge" seeks to empower Latinx mothers in the South Bend area who often experience disrespect or abuse by medical professionals throughout the birthing process to share their stories through creative expression.
“Art and literature function as languages with which Latinx women can narrate and share their birth experiences,” Miseres and Smith-Oka wrote in their proposal. “We believe that their works in literature and the visual arts can facilitate deeper knowledge of harm, healing, and prevention in the community and around obstetric violence.”