CALL. 10.05.2019: From Food Cultures to Food Cults - Coimbra (Portugal)

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Foods thus acquire cultural identities that rescue them from the silence of a purely instrumental use. Religion, art, literature and gastronomy are among the main cultural domains that bring foods to new domains of re-signification. And even though this phenomenon is not new, the cult of certain products and alimentary techniques is increasingly more important in the fields of health, tourism, fashion, ecology and practical philosophy.

Never before have so many different foods promised longevity, salvation or, on the contrary, been accused of being harmful for humankind. In societies in which there is abundance – and despite an inequality in distribution – we now see an increase in the importance attributed to food, which is transformed into an object of cult and a vector of social distinction. At the same time, there is also a growing reflection directed towards new food forms, better suited to the demands of sustainable natural and environmental resources.

FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 10/05/2019

FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 23-24-25/10/2019

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Sé Velha (Coimbra, Portugal)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Carmen Soares (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra​​); Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra​​); Inês de Ornellas e Castro (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa​​); Paula Barata Dias (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra​​); Wanessa Asfora (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra).

INFO: web

CALL:

DIAITA’s 6th Portuguese — Brazilian Colloquium on the History and Cultures of Food puts forward, as a suggested topic of reflection, a debate on the role of Food Cultures in the setting up of culture itself (taken in its broadest sense, the result of human ingenuity) and to analyze the evolution that made it possible for some foods, from Antiquity to the present, to acquire such prestige that they originatedFood Cults (manifested in religious, ethical, artistic, gastronomic, medical and touristic contexts).

Proposals to be submitted must revolve around one (or both) of these two axes of reflection. We welcome approaches that are broad, interdisciplinary and historicized as well as approaches that adopt a more vertical or disciplinary account of the following topics for each of the thematic axes:

From Food Cultures…

1. Food and survival: eating to live;

2. Food and cultural mobility: mobility of foods, people and communities;

3. Food and heritage: cultural and collective identities;

4. The pathways of food: local, global and glocal food;

5. Food and social hierarchies: eating in order to be and to honor;

6. Paradoxes of contemporary food: pleasure, aesthetics, health and medicalization.

...To Food Cults

1. Sacred foods: feeding the soul and the divine, and taboo foods;

2. Foods that save, foods that condemn: symbolic narratives and the quest for the perfect body;

3. New limits of the edible: non-conventional foods;

4. Natural foods: a construct?

5. Terroir foods: tourism and sustainability;

6. Food-medicine: super-foods, nutraceuticals and probiotics;

7. Fashion-foods;

8. Food art: the “gastronomization” of the beautiful.

This interdisciplinary conference is promoted by a network of Portuguese and Brazilian researchers, but open to participants from all around the world.

There are no specific geographical or temporal parameters regarding the subject matter of papers.

The conference is aimed equally at postgraduate students, researchers in the early stages of their careers and established academics.

Proposal Submission​​

1. All the proposals must be submitted in the following form (LINK)

2. All the proposals will be evaluated by the Organizing Comission and the Scientific Comission;

3. The abstract should present the structure of the talk and describe: the problem under investigation, the study method used, the main results obtained, the conclusions and the implications for theory and/or practice, and (if applicable) the innovative contribution to the state of the art (maximum of 500 words and 5 keywords).

4. Each author could submit one proposal with single authorship (20 min. presentation) and two proposals in partnership (max. 40 min. presentation each) in the following languages: PT, ES, FR, IT and EN;

All the proposals selected for presentation, after evaluation, must have a support material (PPT presentation, hand-outo or extended abstract) written in a diferente language from the oral presentation. Example: a Portuguese oral presentation must have a support material written in ES, FR, IT or EN to be showned or delivered to the assistence. The organization will provide technological support for digital presentations (notebook and datashow). All the paper materials must be printed and supported by the authors.

5. The deadline for proposals' submission is 10th may 2019;

6. The evaluation results will be released until 20th june 2019;

7. After the evaluation results releasing, the select speakers should formalize the registration payment (non-refundable