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Events Overview

Current Events

No Events Currently Available. Please check back on a later date.

Events that took place before the Fall of 2015 can be scrolled through here.

"Virgilio Martínez and the Settler Colonial Sublime in Peru"

In this workshop, anthropologist María Elena García will facilitate a conversation about the cultural and colonial politics of gastronomy in Peru. More specifically, participants will explore Peruvian chef Virgilio Martínez’s culinary work, including his emphasis on Peruvian biodiversity and his claims of ‘discovering,’ selecting, classifying, and transforming local, ‘unknown,’ Indigenous ingredients and knowledge into high-end global cuisine. Through a collective viewing of the Netflix show Chef’s Table’s episode about Martínez, and a discussion of García’s essay on Martínez and the “settler-colonial sublime,” we will critically explore how the skill and artistry of Peruvian chefs like Martínez work in tandem with a “gastropolitical complex” of political, cultural, and economic forces to obscure ongoing entanglements with coloniality.

"Off-Animals: Exhausted Capitalism and the Last Remains of Hog Killing in Chicago"

“Off-animals,” as they are called by some managers of North American pork production, are the biological refuse of agribusiness efforts to realize standardized life and death. Ranging from aged boars to misshapen pigs, evolving attempts to industrially slaughter these creatures for meat has led to a shadow infrastructure of killing that, in turn, underpins some of the world’s largest factory farms — and potentially signals their limits. This talk arches through Alex Blanchette’s recent book, Porkopolis, and into his research on the remains of Chicago’s Union Stockyards, in order to examine off-animals as indicators of the waning state of labor and value in the United States today.

Biography

Rice and Beans, from the project Coast to Coast: from West Africa to the World

Please join us for a live demonstration, cook-along (in-person & virtual), and lecture on the intersections of foodstuffs and storytelling, with the Kitchen Buterfly, Ozoz Sokoh.

Ozoz Sokoh is a food explorer, budding curator, and Traveler By Plate, for whom 'Food Is More Than Eating'. In 2009, she began journaling about food her blog, Kitchen Butterfly. Central to her work is connectedness through food, as well as the unearthing and celebrating Nigerian & West African food and drink history, paying homage to West African ancestors and their expertise, resilience, and creativity. Her research and documentation explore the impact of West African intellectual contributions to global development from the American South, through the Caribbean to Europe and Latin America.

Developing a Toolkit for Community-Engaged Research—Feeding City Lab

How can humanities scholars develop research for social innovation and change? What tools and strategies can scholars use to initiate meaningful and impactful community-engaged research? Join members of the Feeding City Lab for a lively discussion on building a community-engaged research project. This 2-hour online workshop will share some tools and practices from the Feeding City Lab, which documents grassroots pathways of provisioning during the pandemic in order to foster more inclusive, equitable, and resilient food systems.

Antifascism and the Café Culture: A Panel on the Modern Spaces & Substances of Resistance

This panel discussion investigates the role of the café and other spaces of sociability in fostering resistance against fascism. Panelists’ research explores how the urban spaces and the substances consumed therein can either bring people together to foment resistance in the fascist moment or how these spaces can fall short. This examination of spaces past can help us strategize on how the contemporary café culture may or may not be well positioned to oppose fascism today.

Moderator—Kristin Plys (University of Toronto): Café culture of the Global South, 20th c. political movements

Sean Lovitt (University of Delaware): Cafe culture and anarchist movements in 1960s NYC

Mareen Heying (University of Hagen): Gender, politics, and pub culture in late 19th—early 20th century Germany

W. Scott Haine (University of Maryland): Viennese cafe culture during the Anschluss

Virtual Roundtable on Community-Engaged Humanities Research—Project Spotlight: Catering Communities

Join JHI Fellow Jaclyn Rohel as she hosts her research collaborators for a conversation about co-creating community-engaged research. This virtual roundtable will highlight practices in applied humanities research based on Catering Communities, a project in collaboration with the neighbourhoods-based food organization caterToronto.

Annual Speak Series: Benjamin R. Cohen, "How Not to Feed the World"

Please register for this event through EventBrite to receive the Zoom link

[https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/speaker-series-202122-benjamin-r-cohen-on-ho....

Annual Speaker Series 2021-22: Benjamin R. Cohen (Lafayette College)

DETAILS TBA--Check back soon!

Special Roundtable: Translating the Foods of the World

Please join on 14 December 2021, 9:30-11:00am EDT (Toronto time) for a special roundtable Translating the Foods of the World hosted by Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, the Culinaria Research Centre, University of Toronto, and the Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas.

Please note that this event will be held online. Please register using this EventBrite link to receive the event Zoom link.

This roundtable features:

Miranda Brown

Saumya Gupta

Eric C. Rath

Krishnendu Ray (host)

Robert Valgenti

"While Supplies Last: Exploring the Material Culture of Limited Edition Packaged Foods"

Please join us in welcoming our first guest in the 2021-22 Annual Speaker Series--Emily Truman from the University of Calgary, who will present her work entitled:

"While supplies last: Exploring the material culture of limited edition packaged foods"

“Activating Food”: Cultivating Culture & Delivering Connections

—A Panel Inspired by the Exhibition “A Seat at the Table” and Featuring Activists and Researchers from Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian Community—

How can museums navigate the mobilities of living foodways and intergenerational connections in a place like Vancouver’s Chinatown? How are places and intersections shaped by the activisms and lives of those who cultivate and deliver culturally appropriate foodstuffs? How do gardens, food couriers, and the restaurant industry intersect in ways that shape community connections? These and other questions will be addressed by a panel of community activists and researchers who mobilize museum practices to meet the needs of this dynamic intersection between peoples, places, and foodways.

Mapping Italian-Canadian Foodways in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA)

Please join us in welcoming Prof. Teresa Lobalsamo of UTM for a talk about the various aspects of mapping Italian foodways in the GTHA over time and across spaces in this installment of the annual Speaker Series.

“Intersections of Black and Indigenous Food Sovereignty: A Conversation”

Please join the Culinaria community in welcoming Naya Jones (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Tabitha Robin (University of Winnipeg) for a conversation about the intersections of Black and Indigenous food sovereignty. The collaborative conversation between these two scholar-activists sheds light on the persistent challenges of the myriad intersections of food and social justice, and what those challenges mean when viewed through critical engagements of culture, embodiment, and the translation between knowledge and practice. They will share further readings and resources.

Feeding the City (Spring 2021)

Please check back regularly for details about this next seminar in the Feeding the City, Pandemic & Beyond series. More information about the project itself can be found at the feedingcity.org.

"Archival Stories of Food, Airplanes, and Museums"

We are thrilled to welcome Prof. Irina D. Mihalache & Prof. Elizabeth Zanoni to present their latest work on food and material culture as a part of Culinaria’s Annual Speaker Series. Please join us for their presentation, entitled "Archival Stories of Food, Airplanes, and Museums", to be followed by an open discussion and Q&A period.

Dr. Elizabeth Zanoni is Associate Professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She’s the author of Migrant Marketplaces: Food and Italians in North and South America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018) as well as scholarly chapters and articles on immigration, gender, food, and consumer culture.

Supporting Farmer Livelihoods: Research Partnerships for Action

Please join us on January 22nd for the second webinar in the Good Food Solutions by FLEdGE series, which highlights sustainable food system research from across the “Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged” and Canadian Association for Food Studies networks, and is proudly co-sponsored by Feeding the City: Pandemic & Beyond.

"Regional Cuisine": A Talk on the History of the Guilanian Staple Diet--January 14, 2021

Please join us in welcoming Prof. Maryam Sadat Fayyazi for a cooking demonstration and talk about the history of the Guilanian staple diet in the context of Persian cuisine. Using the virtual platform, guests will learn how to cook these dishes in the framework of her talk, followed by an open discussion as a part of our annual Speaker Series. PLEASE RSVP to culinaria.utsc@utoronto.ca.

Feeding the City: Women Farmers on COVID-19 and Food Sovereignty

ONLINE EVENT - Feeding the City, Pandemic and Beyond:

Women Farmers on COVID-19 and Food Sovereignty

Wed. Dec. 9, 2020 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST (UTC -5:00) | REGISTRATION REQUIRED via EventBrite

How have farmers responded to unprecedented challenges and opportunities throughout the pandemic? How has COVID-19 highlighted long-term changes that are needed in agriculture and food distribution in Canada? Join us for an interactive roundtable featuring three women ecological farmers:

'Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition"

Please join us in welcoming back former Post Doctoral Fellow Dr. Lisa Haushofer for this latest and virtual installment of Culinaria's annual series of seminars and speakers. Dr. Haushofer is a historian of science, food, and economic life, as well as the co-founder of "Remedia," a collaborative blog project focused on making quality scholarship on the medical humanities accessible to the public. Her talk will focus on a chapter from her latest book project, entitled "Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition."

“Wonder Foods” explores how commercial products came to play a central role in the sciences of nutrition and in the cultural valence of food. It tells the history of a complex entanglement between nutrition and products, between the production of nutritional scientific knowledge and the making of nutritional products.

Feeding the City, Pandemic & Beyond: Voices from Local Grocery Stores and Public Markets in a Diverse City

ONLINE – Feeding the City, Pandemic and Beyond: Voices from Local Grocery Stores and Public Markets in a Diverse City

Wed, 28 October 2020 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EDT | REGISTRATION REQUIRED via EventBrite

How have local markets and grocery stores pivoted in the time of COVID-19 to continue feeding their communities? How can these local businesses help build a resilient food system in a diverse city? What new challenges and opportunities lay ahead? Join us from Tkaronto (Toronto) for an interactive roundtable featuring: