Ongoing and Past Research Projects
“Extracts, Essences and Political Effects: How Vanilla Shapes American Life”
My manuscript project based on my doctoral research examines the politics and social worlds of vanilla—as an ingredient, a flavor, a fragrance, and a euphemism for race—in the context of everyday life in the United States. Cumulatively it explores how vanilla contains multitudes yet communicates the ordinary alongside normative ideological positions as they are tied to class status, ethnicity, gender, and race in the United States.
“Famous, Relatable, Cravings: Chrissy Teigen’s Culinary Self-Presentations”
What does it mean to translate the celebrity self across media? My Master’s thesis explored the multi-hyphenate, multiracial celebrity Chrissy Teigen’s relations to food, identity, and media through her first two cookbooks Cravings and More Cravings.
“‘As American as Apple Pie’: The History of American Apple Pie and Its Development into a National Symbol”
This project emerged as Claire’s undergraduate thesis—her “SPROJ” (senior project) at Bard College. It explores the place of apple pie in the American imaginary from the founding to the mid-twentieth century to argue that the expression “as American as apple pie” becomes most salient in moments of crafting a national identity on the national stage, especially in understanding the U.S. as separate from Western European nations in World War I.
