Person:
Cooks, Leda

Job Title

Professor, Department of Communication, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Last Name

Cooks

First Name

Leda

Discipline

Communication

Introduction

My research interests revolve around power, identity, body and culture, particularly as they are connected to discourse and performance. I generally situate my research in the context of social justice, critical pedagogy and community activism. My work has appeared in feminist, community service learning, communication, education, performance, mediation and development communication journals and in books dealing with topics such as whiteness studies, food studies, meda literacy, intercultural communication, communication education, communication activism, ethics and new media. Of particular concern in my work are the performances and spaces in which bodies are identified and legislated as raced, gendered, classed, etc.

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

The End(s) of Freeganism and the Cultural Production of Food Waste
(2017-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
Justice, Report and Testimony in #MeToo and the ICTY
(2019-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.; Zenovich, Jennifer A.
In the aftermath of the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, in the United States the phrase “I believe Christine Blasey Ford” was trending next to “I still believe Anita Hill,” #MeToo, and “Why I didn’t report.” At 51, Dr. Ford explained that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her in high school. In the United States, Democratic politicians mobilized her trauma as evidence of Kavanaugh’s unfitness for the position of Supreme Court Justice while some Republicans questioned the legitimacy and weight of her claims (Stolberg, 2018). Although there is precedent for the handling of accusations of sexual misconduct in Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the way in which the story and testimony was reported and received politically, nationally, and internationally illuminates the dialogism (Bahktin, 1981) as well as the moral imperative of the #MeToo movement.
Bodies, spaces and places for food taste and waste
(2019-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
In a darkened auditorium, I project two images to the audience. In one, a picture of mass-produced, perfectly spherical, unblemished red tomatoes. In the other, a picture of some garden tomatoes: stretch-marked, unevenly shaped, blemished, and with slightly different coloration. I ask the group of students and community members assembled at this public talk: “Which tomatoes would you buy?” I have asked this question of audiences around the US, and surveyed distributors and consumers informally in Italy and Brazil. Another time, I show a photo of abundant piles of clean, fresh, perfect produce at one market, and a picture of another market where there are just a few of each item (though no less perfect) on display. Again, the question is posed: “Which would you buy?” I have pointed out tomatoes or other produce and queried people in farmers’ markets, community centers, convention halls and classrooms. My reasons for the inquiry and the implications of the responses, while seemingly simple questions of taste and consumption, are the basis for my journey in this chapter into the complexities of taste, waste, capital and embodiment that prefigure a preference for tomato (and other food) consumption.
The Communicative Ethics of Racial Identity in Dialogue
(2020-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
This article explores the role of narratives about racial identity in constituting ethical performances in dialogue. Specifically, a dialogic communication ethics is described and placed in the context of intergroup dialogue (IGD) and communication approaches to dialogue. Then the focus turns to how these ethical frames and models for conducting dialogue functioned in a large-scale campus dialogue on race and whiteness. The article addresses the ways identities were constructed and deployed in the dialogues by examining how dialogue topics are framed and discussed by facilitators and participants. This discussion of intention and outcome raises theoretical and practical questions in order to facilitate further conversations about identity and ethics in a controversially “Post-racial” era. Finally, the article looks at how communication ethics and dialogue might work to address the discursive power of social group identities in pedagogical discussions of civility, inclusion, merit or a “good” life.
Food and/as Communication
(2020-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
This is a two-semester, eight-credit Communication Honors Thesis Seminar focusing on the ways we create and reflect meanings made about food. The seminar delves into the material and social meanings of food and implications for identity, culture and social justice. Students will have the opportunity to research food in the context of the meanings made about it in various institutions, businesses, nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, cultures and communities. The first semester HONORS 499 CL (Fall 2020) will 1) introduce students to food as a vehicle through which society and social life is communicated; 2) introduce methods and tools for conducting survey based and qualitative community-based research and 3) introduce potential projects for student theses. Each student will develop a proposal to conduct a research project based on their interests, abilities and relevance to community needs. The second semester HONORS 499 DL (Spring 2021) will be devoted to the analysis of data and completion of your individual research projects. All research projects, upon completion, should be suitable for conference presentation and an archivable Honors Thesis
Accounting for my Teacher's Body: What Can I Teach/What Can We Learn?
(2007-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
The ideals of democratic education most often rely on a logic of identity that, as Theodor Adorno has argued, denies and represses difference. Young (1987, p. 63) observes that this repression relies on “an opposition between public and private dimensions of human life, which corresponds to an opposition between reason on the one hand, and the body, affectivity, and desire on the other.” This paper examines the private/public dualisms that construct the female teacher's body in the space of schooling. In particular, the paper constructs three scenes: reading student evaluations at the end of term, sweating through class, and a class discussion about identity, to discuss how the female teacher's competence is constructed through discourses of the body. Borrowing partly from Michel Foucault, the essay focuses on the ways discourses assumed to be private (the body) become part of the public space in order to evaluate intellectual competency. In this manner, the rational discursive space of the classroom is maintained through confusing the conformity of the body with the efficiency of the mind. The essay works toward a pedagogical stance that opens up dialogue with and through this female teacher's body. Through drawing attention to how the body performs through (non)conformity, this article hopes to not only deconstruct power/body relations but also offer a means to disrupt them.
Food Rescue Networks and the Food System
(2021-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic it was widely reported that, in the United States, over 40 percent of food produced was wasted. During the pandemic, news reports have described unprecedented household food waste, up by 30 percent according to Republic Services, one of the largest waste management services in the US (Helmer 2020). But upstream, food waste was, and continues to be, equally problematic. When institutions such as schools and universities, large businesses, restaurants, and other venues must shut down, so too must the food supply chain for those locations. Farmers who produce food for large-scale public use have been unable to redirect their products for grocery markets, and so in many cases their harvests and dairy cannot be used. Elsewhere along the chain, farm and other food laborers (e.g. meat packing workers, delivery workers) without access to protection and health care cannot continue to pack and deliver food at “normal” levels, and so potential food was left in fields and warehouses (Evich 2020).
"Save Money and Save the Planet": The Rhetorical Appeal and Use of (Anti-)Food Waste and Rescue Apps During Covid-19
(2022-01-01) Cooks, Leda M.
Two contradictory events occurred during the early months of COVID-19: 1) with portrayals of food rotting in fields and in distribution centers, more public attention was drawn to reports of massive waste all along the food chain, and 2) more people were buying more food than they needed or could possibly use and wasting it (Roe et al. 404). Simultaneously, more people were working from home and, more generally, eating all their meals at home. The incredible rise in use of apps that facilitated food delivery has been a subject of media attention and academic research (e.g., Sharma et. al). Less reported or studied has been the rise during COVID-19 in the use of apps that claimed to aid in food waste reduction.