LECTURES & LIBATIONS – Eat or Be Eaten: Desire & Metaphor in Literature

A live lecture series produced by Art Crush LA, designed to bring compelling thinkers into a social, accessible, and elevated environment.
📍Location: Exact address shared in the confirmation email

🎤 Speaker: Tarra Stevenson (TikTok @GirlsSchoolBooks, Substack @thisisnotheavymeta)

📚 Lecture: Eat or Be Eaten: Desire & Metaphor in Literature

In some languages, to eat and to copulate are the same word. Women are encouraged to eat less, so as to become a treat for someone else. Did you know that our everyday language perpetuates how women are consumed and discarded? In conceptual metaphor theory, this aligns with “Women are Food,” a recurring structure in patriarchal language and literature where consumption is both literal and linguistic. In a society that uses food as currency, performance, and power, let’s explore the language that keeps women and marginalized genders from power.

We’ll be drawing on non-fiction like Wordslut by Amanda Montell and theory by bell hooks, Caitlin Hines, and Virginia Woolf, and referencing fiction like The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxanne Gay, Piglet by Lottie Hazell, and Sula by Toni Morrison.

Find her on TikTok, Substack, & Gumroad!

Tarra Stevenson writes fairy tales, horror, and academic analysis, all based around her master’s thesis on conceptual metaphor. She has poetry and short stories published in Vinyl, Shirley Magazine, the LA Miscellany, Writer's Resist, and Lit Angels. She was the Book Reviews editor for The Coachella Review and had a column there titled “Hard to Swallow,” which she is currently transforming into an (anti) cookbook. She’s currently on the Board of the Secondary School Writing Center Association and the International Writing Center Association and teaches at an all-girls school in Pasadena. Tarra can be found on Substack at Heavy Meta and on TikTok @GirlsSchoolBooks. She is always working on a novel.

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Agenda

7:00 PM – Doors open: arrive early to find a seat & grab a drink

7:25 PM – Host introduction

7:30 PM – Lecture begins

8:10 PM – Audience Q&A

8:30 PM – Mingle with the speaker & fellow guests. Grab another round!

9:00 PM – 👋🏼

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