Critical Studies in Food and Culture

Food: History and Culture in the West
A Symposium

European Union Center of Excellence
University of California, Berkeley

Friday, April 30, 2010
223 Moses Hall

Cosponsors Institute of European Studies and Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies


9-11 am
Food and Identity

Moderator
Stanley Brandes, UC Berkeley

Martin Jones, University of Cambridge
Why do Humans Share Food?

Andrew Warnes, Leeds University
The Sadomasochistic Recipe?: Postwar UK Cookery Culture and the Love of Impossible Food

Aaron Bobrow-Strain, Whitman College
Walter Benjamin and “the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread”

12:30-2:30 pm
Cultural Practices & Food

Moderator
Thomas Laqueur, UC Berkeley

Tatjana Thelen, University of Zurich and Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany
Commensality and Identity: Meanings of Food Practices at the Workplace in Eastern Germany

Courtney Fullilove, Wesleyan University
Failures of Tea Culture in the American South

Louis Grivetti, UC Davis
Dark Chocolate: Chocolate-Related Crime in London, England (1693-1834)

3-5:30 pm
The Politics of Food

Moderator
John Efron, UC Berkeley

Ben Wurgaft, UC Berkeley
Against “Corpse Tea”: Nazi Vegetarianism and Nazi Biopolitics

Melanie DuPuis, UC Santa Cruz
American Obesity: S.A.D. or Saved by the Mediterranean Diet?

Warren Belasco, University of Maryland
Saving the World with a Clean Plate