Description:
Disgustatory! develops a Gothic rhetoric of consumption to analyze wellness discourse, revealing how food, medicine, and health practices are shaped by fear, monstrosity, and persuasive ambiguity. Through case studies of products and communities, Tirrell and Maddalena explore how rhetorical tropes structure cultural anxieties around bodily control, purity, and transformation.
Review Quotes:
"The book is cleverly argued and vibrantly written. Tirrell and Maddalena capture the grotesque landscape of modern nutrition and illustrate how discourses of collective consumption find themselves at a particularly gothic junction. A delicious rhetorical romp and a delectable argument, brimming with jouissance." --Cristina Hanganu-Bresch, coauthor of Diagnosing Madness: The Discursive Construction of the Psychiatric Patient, 1850-1920