{"product_id":"the-harlequin-eaters-from-food-scraps-to-modernism-in-nineteenth-century-france-9781517915902","title":"The Harlequin Eaters: From Food Scraps to Modernism in Nineteenth-Century France","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow representations of the preparation, sale, and consumption of leftovers in nineteenth-century urban France link socioeconomic and aesthetic history\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e The concept of the \"harlequin\" refers to the practice of reassembling dinner scraps cleared from the plates of the wealthy to sell, replated, to the poor in nineteenth-century Paris. In \u003ci\u003eThe Harlequin Eaters, \u003c\/i\u003eJanet Beizer investigates how the alimentary harlequin evolved in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the earlier, similarly patchworked Commedia dell'arte Harlequin character and can be used to rethink the entangled place of class, race, and food in the longer history of modernism. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e By superimposing figurations of the edible harlequin taken from a broad array of popular and canonical novels, newspaper articles, postcard photographs, and lithographs, Beizer shows that what is at stake in nineteenth-century discourses surrounding this mixed meal are representations not only of food but also of the marginalized people--the \"harlequin eaters\"--who consume it at this time when a global society is emerging. She reveals the imbrication of kitchen narratives and intellectual-aesthetic practices of thought and art, presenting a way to integrate socioeconomic history with the history of literature and the visual arts. \u003ci\u003eThe Harlequin Eaters\u003c\/i\u003e also offers fascinating background to today's problems of food inequity as it unpacks stories of the for-profit recycling of excess food across class and race divisions. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e Janet Beizer is C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France at Harvard University. She is author of \u003ci\u003eThinking through the Mothers: Reimagining Women's Biographies; Ventriloquized Bodies: Narratives of Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century France; \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFamily Plots: Balzac's Narrative Generations\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50509555630354,"sku":"9781517915902","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_4c55ffd6-3829-478f-97f9-5af05bcd8c93.jpg?v=1730901748","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-harlequin-eaters-from-food-scraps-to-modernism-in-nineteenth-century-france-9781517915902","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}