Proposal

I would like to examine the culture surrounding local foods.  It has been recently become more of a mainstream focus and the question I would like to ask is, “why are people choosing to grow their own or locally source their food?”  I feel that there are many resources I can access in order to find a wealth of information on this subculture.  I have already read two books on the subject called Plenty and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Michael Pollan also does quite a bit of work on locally sourcing food and eating as close to the earth as possible.  There are numerous blogs devoted to people eating locally (usually within 100 miles) for an entire year and they write about their experiences during the process.  I would like to interview some of the local farmers who provide their crops to local restaurants and also those who provide CSA’s, Community Supported Agriculture.  I would be interested in hearing about their growth in the past couple of years and continued interest of people in knowing where their food is coming from.  Two aspects of this culture that I am most interested in are the socioeconomic that seems to be a factor and programs like those that Alice Water’s started, which are incorporating local foods into schools.  We are the only country in the world where are poorest people are the fattest; everywhere else in the world the poorest are the most malnourished.  It has become that those with money are the ones who are able to buy food from the local farms.  Alice Water’s is a chef from California who has not only brought local foods and gardens to public schools to teach children about food but has put these programs into some of the poorest schools where high fat, processed foods are the norm.  She is helping these kids and our country establish a food identity, interested in growing, harvesting, cooking, and preserving heirloom varietals.  This is important because as our country progresses, our farm to table food is diminishing.  There is a whole group of people in this country and throughout the world determined to protect our food and our farmers.

Project Possibilities

The two Discourses I am interested in researching are Local Food culture and Brentwood.

Local Food is a pretty recent movement that has turned into its own subculture, focusing on farm to table foods. The awareness of where our food comes from has become a hot topic and more and more people are investing in their local farms.  Some people have gone so far as to only eating local and not using any goods that are from more than 100 miles away.  This would be a fascinating area to study and would love to hear from the many sources.  There are quite a few books and blogs that talk about eating local, though many of them are based from the West Coast.  I also think that it would be interesting to interview farmers in this region to hear about their business and how the sudden interest in supporting local economy has effected them.  It is a bit ironic because in most regions in Europe, it is normal for them to eat all or mostly local food where in America it has become sort of a privilege.  Maybe I could touch on the socioeconomic factors of eating local and how programs such as Edible Schoolyards are incorporating it into schools.

My second possibility is researching about Brentwood, Tn.  It is the suburb of Nashville that I grew up in.  It always fascinated and irritated me the sort of standards that are present here.  The people here tend to focus equally on wealth and religion, Christianity to be specific.  It is the land of designer bags and the newest SUV's, but there is a strict undertone of attending church and being religious.  The two just don't really seem to fit hand and hand, but this is what Brentwood is about.  As far as being able to access and find resources I think it would be pretty easy since I lived there and my parents still live there and I went to high school there.

Discourse

This video challenges our preconceptions of a flight attendant and the language they use by placing a "ghetto" black woman as the flight attendant and showing the differences in language, pronunciation and body language.

What I would like to work on in writing class

I have always envied those who have a natural ability to write well.  Writing has always been something that I struggle with.  What I would most like to work on is expressing my thoughts better in my writing.  I tend to become easily frustrated trying to stream my thoughts into writing and it seems as if my brain just locks up on me.  I have a hard time translating what is in my head onto paper.