Eating Serials: Pastoral Power, Print Media, and the Vegetarian Society in England, 1847-1897

• Author / Creator

  Young, Liam

• This thesis is based on research I conducted in the archives of the Vegetarian Society. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of governmentality and pastoral power, as well as on press scholarship, it argues that print media (the Vegetarian Advocate [1848-1851] and Vegetarian Messenger [1849-]) served as the pastor of the nineteenth-century vegetarian movement, shaping the conduct of its readers and eaters, and guiding them to their supposed moral and physical salvation. More specifically, I argue that the form of the periodical (its seriality and participatory framework) helped to create the new patterns of consumption and mechanisms of identification that became the basis of the movement. The monthly periodicity of vegetarian journals gave structure to the movement, while open forums such as correspondence invited readers into the construction of vegetarianism’s meaning, identity, and practice. By returning to the archival matter of the Vegetarian Society, I recuperate an important debate on England’s consumer habits at a time of changing material and cultural conditions.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Periodicals; print culture; Foucault; pastoral power; print media; food studies; vegetarianism; Vegetarian Society; nineteenth century; animal studies.

• Graduation date

  Fall 2017

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3JD4Q54B

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.