Camelot Meeting Room (Lokaal 3.30)
3rd Floor, Blandijnberg 2
Monday, May 11, 2026, 3-4 pm
This presentation examines the trope of cannibalism in satire as a means of interrogating the unstable boundary between sensual and intellectual taste. In the eighteenth century, “taste” denoted both physical gustation and aesthetic or moral discernment, a duality captured in Voltaire’s distinction between goût sensuel and goût intellectuel. It argues that cannibal satire deliberately privileges sensual taste in order to expose the fragility of intellectual judgement, revealing how easily ethical reasoning can be overridden by appetite, fashion, or pleasure. The paper begins with an analysis of A Modest Proposal (1729), showing how Swift’s speaker circumvents moral scrutiny by emphasising the supposed deliciousness of human flesh. This rhetorical strategy functions as a “taste test,” forcing readers to confront whether their responses are governed by reason or by visceral appeal. The persistence of this satiric mechanism is then demonstrated through Matt Edmonds’s 2023 mockumentary Gregg Wallace: Britain’s Miracle Meat, in which ethical objections are similarly displaced by sensuous descriptions of flavour and texture. Ultimately, the paper argues that cannibal satire cultivates a form of critical habitus, compelling audiences to rehearse discernment when confronted with seductive but ethically untenable propositions.
Biography
Dr Adam James Smith is an Associate Professor of English Literature at York St John University, where he is also co-director of the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire. His most work on satire has been published in the European Journal for Humour Research, 1650-1850 Ideas, Aesthetics and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era and the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and he has written chapters on satire for Animal Satire (Palgrave), Character and Caricature, 1660-1820 (Palgrave), The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror, Rewriting Medicine: Healthcare, Literature, Culture, 1660-1831 (Cambridge), The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Environmental Writingand The Cambridge Companion to Literary Vampires. He is co-author of the forthcoming monograph Eighteenth-Century Folk Horror: Roots, Representation and Returns (Bloomsbury) and co-editor of Impolite Periodicals: Reading Rudeness in the Eighteenth Century (Bucknell, 2026), People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2025), People of Print: Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2023) and Print Culture, Agency and Regionality in the Handpress Period (Palgrave, 2022). He is Chief Book Reviews editor for the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies and co-host of the ongoing monthly podcast Smith and Waugh Talk About Satire.
No registration is required for this event.
Moderated by Giulia Coppi (PhD Candidate, UGent).
If you have any questions, please contact andrew.bricker@ugent.be. We look forward to seeing you there!
