The diner, whether in Kerouac or Lahiri, plays a central role in American mythmaking. Diners are, paradoxically, insular nexuses of togetherness. Like the hearth or the cafeteria, they exclude, demarcate, bind, attract, and repel. Both in literature (the bacon buns of This Side of Paradise) and pop culture (the coffee and doughnuts of Twin Peaks), they are mobilized in structural ways that not only propel narrative but also notions of socio-economic reality. 

The purpose of this seminar is to advance understandings of comfort and alienation under the broad umbrella of diners in the contemporary United States. The import of this is far-reaching, and touches everything from national belonging and the “imaginary” (Benedict Anderson’s term) to mythologies of consumption in late capitalism. Papers about mainstream cultural myth, syncretism, language, aesthetic theory, food studies, ethnocentrism, structuralism/post-structuralism, and economics and literature are welcome.