MUMBAI, India, Aug. 24 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202641095659 A) filed by Christ University on August 07, 2026, for A Framework And Method For Analysing Literary Food As A System.
Inventors include T C Nivedita; and Anupama Nayar Cv.
The application for the patent was published on August 21, 2026, under issue no. 34/2026.
Abstract: This invention offers a framework and method for analysing and classifying the representations of food in any literary genre as unique systems. Owing to its versatile nature, food registers a range of material, metaphorical, and contextual meanings in literary narratives; as such, interpretations of literary food are often methodologically fraught. This framework and model, developed as an interdisciplinary, replicable intervention, enables the conceptualisation of literary food as a system for a structured understanding of character—food interactions in a genre. The analytical method approaches literary food as constituted through three interlinked networks that remain fixed across samples: consumptive network, corporeal network, and narrative network. Correspondingly, the framework integrates conceptual insights from food studies, new materialism, and narratology. The method proceeds through five sequential steps that involve extracting character—food interactions from a corpus of texts, inspecting them for context-dependent elements, and categorising these elements into the three networks, followed by critical analysis and synthesis of fmdings to determine the systemic identity of food. The genre of Anthropocene fiction is examined as a case study to verify the applicability of the invention, which can also be scaled down to the level of the text. Through a systematic evaluation process, the methodological innovation establishes literary food as a complex thematic and formal element with distinct contextual variations.
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
