food

Aliases: 

Lifestyle and Zeitgeist: Social Norms and Reforms

Lifestyle and Zeitgeist: Social Norms and Reforms

In the early phase of the vegetarian movement, satirists playfully imagined how this diet and worldview affected different aspects of culture. Other cartoons make fun of the fact that vegetarianism quickly became a trend that was seen as sign of the Zeitgeist of the 1880s. Surprisingly, they overlooked the fact that vegetarianism was indeed intended as a sociocultural reform that could contribute to social and gender equality.

Meat Ban: Pleasure and Pain, Asceticism, and Hypocrisy

Meat Ban: Pleasure and Pain, Asceticism, and Hypocrisy

Since vegetarian societies began to spread and organize events in Germany, their missionary attitude and their supposed moral superiority have been ridiculed. Caricatures mocked the rigid rules of the vegetarians and their societies, accusing them of hypocrisy or of reinterpreting the self-imposed prohibitions according to their own needs and weaknesses.

Humans, Animals, and Nature: Ideas of a Natural and Harmonious (Co-)Existence

Humans, Animals, and Nature: Ideas of a Natural and Harmonious (Co-)Existence

In the nineteenth century, there was much debate about the question of which way of living could be regarded as “natural.” Caricatures on vegetarianism mock ideas of the “natural” relationship between animal and man, and draft utopian as well as dystopian visions of a vegetarian future.

“You Are What You Eat”: Stupid Vegetables and the Charm of the New

“You Are What You Eat”: Stupid Vegetables and the Charm of the New

While English satire magazines mocked vegetarianism since the 1840s, the first German caricatures appeared some 30 years later. Early drawings often imagined that a vegetarian would gradually transform into a plant. Other recurring topics are the assumed correlation between (meatless) nutrition and (peaceful, fragile) physical appearance and character, as well as the debate over whether a meat-rich or a meat-free diet was better for human health.

Agroecology as a Way of Life (Brazil)

Agroecology as a Way of Life (Brazil)

In this chapter from the virtual exhibition “Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey,” Claire Lagier’s 360º video shows six-year-old agroforestry projects in a land reform settlement in the state of Paraná, Brazil. Her research focuses on agroecological rural social movements in this region.