Good afternoon,
I am organizing a session with Mary Beaudry for CNEHA 2016 in Ottawa (Oct. 7-9) on dining, sensoriality, and identity formation. Session abstract follows. If you are interested, please contact me off list. The deadline for submissions is July 31, so please get in touch soon.
Best wishes,
Karen Metheny
Lecturer, MLA in Gastronomy, Metropolitan College
Visiting Research, Archaeology Department
Boston University
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We Are What We Eat (and Think): Exploring the Connection betweenDining, Sensorial Experience, and Identity Formation
Session Chairs: Karen Metheny and Mary C. Beaudry
In this session, we examine the role of the senses (or sensoryexperience) in the creation of "American" identity/identities throughfood. How do foodways practices, food preferences, and identities signaledthrough food change from the Old World to the New, and how are these changeslinked to the sensory experience of food production and consumption? How,for example, are notions of what is good to eat and the interrelated conceptsof diet, health, and well being transformed in the Northeast over time? How isthe Galenic humoral system supplanted by other notions of food, sensation, andmorality/virtue? Can changes be attributed to sensorial experiences arisingfrom colonialism, industrialization, immigration, urbanization, or otherfactors? Or are social or cultural factors at work? What roles do indulgenceand fantasy play, for example, and how are these practices linked to theformation or transformation of identity?
We seek to tie the sensoriality of food production and consumptionto the transformation of ideas and attitudes about food and identity. Wewelcome contributions that examine the interconnection of food, sensoryexperience, and changing identity among immigrant or ethnic groups, or within industrialor urban communities. Contributions that explore the relationship between food,the senses, and the formation of other types of identities based on gender,class, work, race, or imagined communities are also welcome.
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