Donovan Conley (Communication Studies) and Justin Eckstein (PLU; former UNLV MA graduate) published a co-authored paper titled "Phronimos / Taster" in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. The essay theorizes "venatic taste," the hunter-like attentiveness to foraging, as a mode of rhetorical invention rooted in phronesis, or practical wisdom. The authors argue that modern industrial agriculture preempts three questions any food system must answer (where food comes from, what counts as edible, and how much is appropriate), and in doing so forecloses the situated judgment those questions invite. Tracing a geneology of taste through Epicurus, Cicero, Erasmus, and contemporary rhetorical theorist Carolyn Miller, the essay frames taste as moderating, reflexive, discerning, and provisional. Alexis Nikole Nelson's "Black Forager" videos serve as a contemporary exemplar of venatic taste, combining urban discovery, the reclamation of Black Foodways, and ecological restraint into a public pedagogy of sound judgment.
