Critical Studies in Food and Culture

Great Tortilla Conspiracy
SOMARTS Cultural Centers
934 Brannan, SF, CA
April 5-19, 2008

This exhibition is made possible by an Individual Artist Grant of the Cultural Equity Grants of the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Come and join Rene and Rio Yanez for a three week exhibition of
Tortilla Art. The father and son team will be presenting artwork that
uses humor to convey commentary on serious political subjects. Their
subject matter includes transgenic corn, apparitions, and iconography
that covers pop to politics.

The two artists will expand the notion of the tortilla as a medium for
art with their experimental printmaking techniques. They will be heat
pressing, monoprinting, drawing, and painting on actual corn
tortillas. Utilizing the latest digital printing techniques they will
also be showcasing art on printed tortillas.

The Great Tortilla Conspiracy will be doing extensive outreach during
their exhibition. They will be present in the gallery to work on their
tortilla artwork alongside specially invited guest artists. This will
lead to a giant tortilla drawing rally on April 11th from 6pm to 9pm.
The next day, April 12th, the Great Tortilla Conspiracy will present a
panel with leading scholars on the validity of Tortilla Art. Panelists
will include Professor Jose Montoya, Professor Chip Lord, Ella Diaz,
and others.

On April 17th the artists will present their latest innovation, the
first ever tortilla fashion show. The show will feature shirts, bags,
aprons, and other wearables that showcase their deviant sense of
humor. Following the next day is an important panel on transgenic corn
and its impact on the global tortilla industry.

Important Dates
April 5th 6:00pm – 9:30pm – Opening Reception
April 11th 5:00pm – Tortilla Drawing Rally
April 12th 6:00pm – Artist Panel Validating Tortilla Art
April 18th 7:00pm – Tortilla Fashion Show
April 19th 5:00pm – Special Panel on the globalization of Tortillas
and transgenic corn

For more information on the Great Tortilla Conspiracy please visit
www.tortillaconspiracy.com
http://www.somarts.org/content/view/380/27/

NEW COURSE!!!

WMS 200B: Problems in Feminist Research
Feminist Problematics in Studies of Food

Spring 2008
Friday 10:00a-12:50p
CRN# 66016

Professor Kimberly D. Nettles
kdnettles@ucdavis.edu


This course takes as its starting point the study of food (as it intersects with studies of the body, production-consumption, identity formation, foodways, and representations of women) and asks: In what ways have feminist researchers expanded food studies to illuminate issues of power/control, silence/voice, and social and political inequalities in local and global spaces. Which feminist methodologies do they employ? Students in the course will engage in close readings of several recent texts, write weekly essays, participate in in-class discussions, and produce a final paper/project.

Books:
▪
Meredith E. Abarca, Voices in the Kitchen: Views of Food and the World from Working-Class Mexican and Mexican American Women (2006)
▪
Deborah Barndt, Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail, 2nd Edition (2008)
▪
Lisa Heldke, Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer (2003)
▪
Becky Thompson, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A Multiracial View of Eating Problems (1994)
▪
Psyche Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power (2007)


We will also read selections from the following books:
▪
Arlene Voski Avakian and Barbara Haber (eds.), From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food (2005)
▪
Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (eds.), Food and Culture: A Reader, 2nd Edition (2008)
▪
Sherrie Inness (ed.), Pilaf, Pozole, and Pad Thai: American Women and Ethnic Food (2001)
▪
Sherrie Inness (ed.), Cooking Lessons: The Politics of Gender and Food (2001)
▪
Doris Witt, Black Hunger: Food and the Politics of U.S. Identity (1999)
▪
Wenying Xu, Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature (2008)

Timothy Morton
Professor of Literature and the Environment, UC Davis
http://wwwenglish.ucdavis.edu/faculty/morton/morton.html

presents

"Animals, Vegetables, Minerals and Other Alien Beings."

Thursday, March 13
2:10pm
Voorhies 126

This event will be recorded and presented as the Keynote address at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment in the UK this July. Please come by and take this opportunity to hear professor Morton present his interesting work.