Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

IU School of Liberal Arts

SLA Spirograph Ideas. Inspiration. Impact.

Speaking of Doughnuts: Mullins Appears on National Public Radio

News Categories: Anthropology | Books by Faculty | Opportunities | Research

/_Assets/uploads/images/Mullins.Glazed.America.jpgLiberal Arts anthropology professor and department chair Paul Mullins and his book, Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut, were featured on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition on Sunday, August 31st.

[Read and listen to the related story]

[Read the blog and listen to an interview with Paul Mullins]

From the book jacket: 

Everybody loves a good doughnut. The magic combination of soft dough, hot oil, and sugar coating—with or without sprinkles—inspires a wide range of surprisingly powerful memories and cravings. Yet we are embarrassed by our desire; the favorite food of Homer Simpson, caricatured as the dietary cornerstone of cops, a symbol of our collective descent into obesity, doughnuts are, in the words of one California consumer, a "food of shame."

Paul Mullins turns his attention to the simple doughnut in order to learn more about North American culture and society. Both a breakfast staple and a snack to eat any time of day or night, doughnuts cross lines of gender, class, and race like no other food item. Favorite doughnut shops that were once neighborhood institutions remain unchanged—even as their surrounding neighborhoods have morphed into strip clubs, empty lots, and abandoned housing.

Blending solid scholarship with humorous insights, Mullins offers a look into doughnut production, marketing, and consumption. He confronts head-on the question of why we often paint doughnuts in moral terms, and shows how the seemingly simple food reveals deep and complex social conflicts over body image and class structure.

In Mullins’s skillful hands, this simple pastry provides surprisingly compelling insights into our eating habits, our identity, and modern consumer culture. 

[Publisher website]

[Read the book press release]

Published on: September 05, 2008