Joshua I. Lopez | Food Studies

Joshua I. Lopez

Student

I am a PhD student in the Department of History's Body, Place, Identity concentration. I am also UNT's inaugural fellow for the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. My interests in food are rooted in place: my home in El Paso, Texas and the U.S. Southwest more broadly. The foods and foodways that anchor people's identities and sense of belonging along the U.S. - Mexico Borderland motivate my investment in exploring the emotional relationships between food, places, and bodies. Currently, I am exploring the role food plays in queer Chicanx histories, particulalry histories of activism. This exploration includes probing into Mexican American vegan foods and practices and its connection to decolonizing diets.