Hunger, Sensation, and Sexuality

Abstract

Women’s conversations often center around food and hunger as a pleasant sensation and as an indulgence. In his article “Mary Rowlandson’s Hunger and the Historiography of Sexuality,” Jordan Stein discusses the nature of hunger as sensation and how this hunger is a manifestation of Mary Rowlandson’s sexuality in her memoir The Sovereignty and Goodness of God.  I would like to place this novel in conversation with the more modern novel Supper Club by Lara Williams to examine the role that hunger has played in the lives of women throughout history and how it relates to sexuality. My initial thesis is that hunger and food serve women as tools of recognition and erasure, meaning that they use these ideas to assert their bodies and their sexuality or to hide who they are. I will argue that studying texts such as The Sovereignty and Goodness of God and Supper Club can help readers gain an understanding of how food and hunger as sensations are ones that women should embrace and share with each other, as this act of vulnerability is a sign of strength and accepting one’s sexuality.