Complicated theories can add flavor to the cogno-intellectual discourse. This study adds pumpkin flavor:
“The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins,” Lisa Jordan Powell and Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt, GeoHumanities, vol. 1, no. 2, 2015. The authors, at the University of British Columbia, the University of the Fraser Valley, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explain:
“This article examines the symbolic whiteness associated with pumpkins in the contemporary United States. Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte, a widely circulated essay in McSweeney’s on “Decorative Gourd Season,” pumpkins in aspirational lifestyle magazines, and the reality television show Punkin Chunkin provide entry points into whiteness–pumpkin connections. Such analysis illuminates how class, gender, place, and especially race are employed in popular media and marketing of food and flavor… When considered vis-à-vis violence and activism that incorporated pumpkins, these analyses point toward the perils of equating pumpkins and whiteness.”
(Thanks to Ron Josephson for bringing this to our attention.)