Many new theories have bound food production and consumption to representation, and have endeavored to unpack the profound effects of seeing food on the construction of identity. In particular, theories by Julie Guthman and others have revealed how food discourse helps produce and exclude certain permutations of race, class, gender, and sexuality. This conference frames food as both a site and a sign to understand how bodies are constructed, ideals are maintained and monitored, and how those constructs get undone through various interventions. How is alimentary desire shaped by what we see? How are paradigms like race, class, gender and sexuality policed and regulated through food? What are the effects of being seen as food due to stereotyping or the creation of other codes? And in what ways do the morals and manners associated with food figure within the dynamic operations of culture? For our purposes we understand “culture” very broadly—as film, television, everyday practices, fine art, and performance paradigms. The conference consists of several theory-meets-practice panels in which junior and senior scholars will be paired with individuals working in the field, for a more dialogical understanding of food and representation.
Program:
1pm – Welcome
Rosalie Z. Fanshel, Administrative Coordinator, Berkeley Food Institute
1:10pm – Panel 1: Consumption, Preparation, and Self-hood
The Embodied Rhetoric of “Health” from Farm Fields to Salad Bowls
Jean P. Retzinger, Assistant Director and Lecturer, Media Studies, UC Berkeley
Dirt Out There or Dirt In Here? Food, Contamination, and Emotions
Kara Young, Graduate Student, Sociology, UC Berkeley
Translating in the Kitchen
Aruna D'Souza, Art Historian
Discussion moderated by Katie Anania, Lecturer, Art History, California College of the Arts and San Francisco Art Institute
2:40pm – Coffee and Tea
2:50pm – Panel 2: Decolonizing Our Food, Decolonizing Ourselves
Broadening Access to Rural Queer Land, Agriculture, and Community Living: Anti-oppression Approaches to the Meandering Path of Change
Sarick Matzen, Graduate Student, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley
Title TBA, on the Rise and Fall of “Queer Food for Love”
Yasmin Golan, Culinary Artist
Discussion moderated by Katie Anania, Lecturer, Art History, California College of the Arts and San Francisco Art Institute
3:50pm – Coffee and Tea
4:00pm – Panel 3: Producing Food, Producing Subjects
The Celebrity of a “Lunatic Farmer:” Joel Salatin, Neo-Liberalism, Masculinity, and Sustainable Farming
Ryanne Pilgeram, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Idaho
“So God Made a Farmer”: Proximities of Settler Colonialism and the Agrarian
Hossein Ayazi, Graduate Student, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley
Discussion and closing moderated by Jill Bakehorn, Lecturer, Sociology, UC Berkeley
5:00pm – Reception
English Department Lounge, Wheeler Hall
This symposium is sponsored by the Berkeley Food Institute.
Cosponsored by: Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and Media Studies Program.