CFP: “Food and Foodways across the Mediterranean World” The Mediterranean Seminar Spring 2026 Workshop (22 & 23 May: Eugene OR)
1 view
Skip to first unread message
David Wacks
Jan 16, 2026, 3:02:59 PM (10 days ago) Jan 16
to David Wacks, Mediber, 'Cohen, Julia Phillips' via Sephardi Mizrahi Caucus, Andalusi Studies
The Mediterranean Seminar, with the collaboration and sponsorship of the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages at the University of Oregon Eugene,
announce “Food and Foodways across the Mediterranean World,” the Mediterranean Seminar Spring 2026 Workshop to be held on 22 & 23 May, on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene.
The workshop will feature two keynote speakers, three workshopped papers and round-table sessions.
Keynote speakers:
Nawal Nasrallah (independent scholar and translator)
Carolyn Nadeau (Illinois Wesleyan University)
Food is fundamental to the human experience, and some would argue, a defining feature of the historical and cultural Mediterranean. After all, for Braudel, the Mediterranean was the “land of the vine and olive.” Some today extol the “Mediterranean diet,” while others dismiss it as a marketing artifice. Whatever the case, what we consume is at times held to define us. Food can separate us, but it also joins us together. Religious and social rituals prescribe what is to be eaten and how, when and with whom, and what foods are not to be eaten, when and with whom. And yet food is also a leveler, joining people of diverse identities in fellowship in one of life’s most basic and pleasant activities. Feasting marks our greatest occasions. The production, distribution and consumption of food has shaped and transformed societies, economies and ways of seeing the world. It is deeply bound up in colonization and conquest and often drives diplomacy. Armies march on their bellies. The need for staples and desire for luxury food bound together the interests of the Christian and Muslim Mediterranean and their global hinterlands. While we seldom eat our enemies, we do often covet their food, and sometimes we bring our own to the feast. From the medieval Islamicate “Green Revolution” to the stream of spices coming in along the “Silk Roads,” to the culinary transformations of the Colombian Exchange, the Mediterranean has been a crucible of culinary innovation and food looms large in our image of the Mediterranean and in the mind of its inhabitants.
The Mediterranean Seminar and the University of Oregon at Eugene invite papers that deal with any aspect of the production, distribution, consumption or representation of food and foodways in the Mediterranean world from Antiquity to the present, whether literal or metaphorical, historical or imagined, as seen from disciplinary perspectives as diverse economic, social, cultural, or political history, literature, history of philosophy, history of science and medicine, art and art history, musicology, anthropology or any related humanities and social science disciplines.
Proposals are welcome from scholars of all ranks from across all disciplines of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, as are papers from the Sciences, that engage in the broadest sense with social, historical and cultural aspects of the Mediterranean language, linguistics, literature, culture, society, art, and social, economic and political history, as well as anthropology, sociology, and other related humanities and social science disciplines. Junior scholars, graduate students, contingent faculty, scholars of underrepresented communities, and those whose work engages with historically marginalized groups are particularly encouraged to apply.
Papers may address either specific case studies or larger historical, cultural, artistic or historiographical dynamics and apparatuses. Comparative, interdisciplinary, and methodologically innovative papers are of particular interest. Our Mediterranean world is construed as the center of the historical West, including southern Europe, the Near East and North Africa and stretching into continental Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Black Sea and Central Asia, and the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean. While our primary laboratory is the premodern Mediterranean, we welcome proposals from across historical eras, as well papers which focus on other regions in which analogous or related processes can be observed.
For the workshop program, we invite abstracts (250 words) for unpublished in-progress
articles or book or dissertation chapters relating directly or tangentially to food and foodways in the premodern Mediterranean.
To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your
proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV
(pdf).
The deadline for workshop proposals is 15 February 2026 via this form. Successful applicants will submit a 35-page (maximum) double-spaced unpublished paper-in-progress for pre-circulation by 3 May 2026.
For the three round-table conversations, we invite abstracts (±250 words) for position
papers that respond to one of the prompts below.
The deadline for application proposals is 15 February 2026 via this form.
Round-table presenters will submit a 3-5 page “position paper” in response to their round-table prompt by 13 May 2026. Position papers are informal “op-ed” pieces with minimal scholarly apparatus.
To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your
proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV(pdf).
Round-table topics
1. Production and Distribution: How were crops, products, ingredients and techniques of food production developed and disseminated across the Mediterranean world? How did production, dissemination and consumption of food shape Mediterranean economies and how did this intersect with specific communities and constituencies?
2. Consumption and Culture: Was there a “Mediterranean diet”? What was it and how did it evolve? What role did food have in social and cultural practices, and secular and religious rituals? What were the various manifestations of Mediterranean food culture and how did these vary over time, place and across ethno-religious communities?
3. Perceptions and Representations: How was food viewed and depicted in art and across the various genres of literature (including fiction and non-fiction, prose, poetry, and scientific, moral or religious texts)? What particular dynamics and tensions did this produce?
Given that only three workshop papers can be accepted, workshop applicants are encouraged to also apply for a round-table (using a separate form). Applicants are welcome to indicate more than one round-table topic if appropriate for their proposal.
This is an in-person meeting only. The workshop language is English. Participants agree to be present and actively participate in the entirety of the program.
Meals and accommodation will be provided for workshop presenters and for round-table presenters as budget permits.
Domestic air travel will be provided for workshop presenters only (international presenters up to $1000).
A separate call for non-presenting participants will go out in July.
This workshop is organized by Brian A. Catlos (University of Colorado Boulder), Sharon Kinoshita (University of California Santa Cruz) and David Wacks (University of Oregon). It is sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Schnitzer School for Global Studies and Languages, Oregon Humanities Center, Department of Romance Languages, Italian Program, Rutherford Middle East Initiative, Department of Religious Studies, Food Studies Program, Global Studies Institute, Global Justice Program, Harold Schnitzer Family Judaic Studies Program, European Studies Program, Department of History of Art and Architecture, and Department of Comparative Literature, together with the Mediterranean Seminar and the CU Mediterranean Studies Group.
The workshop will feature two keynote speakers, three workshopped papers and round-table sessions.
Keynote speakers:
Nawal Nasrallah (independent scholar and translator)
Carolyn Nadeau (Illinois Wesleyan University)
Food is fundamental to the human experience, and some would argue, a defining feature of the historical and cultural Mediterranean. After all, for Braudel, the Mediterranean was the “land of the vine and olive.” Some today extol the “Mediterranean diet,” while others dismiss it as a marketing artifice. Whatever the case, what we consume is at times held to define us. Food can separate us, but it also joins us together. Religious and social rituals prescribe what is to be eaten and how, when and with whom, and what foods are not to be eaten, when and with whom. And yet food is also a leveler, joining people of diverse identities in fellowship in one of life’s most basic and pleasant activities. Feasting marks our greatest occasions. The production, distribution and consumption of food has shaped and transformed societies, economies and ways of seeing the world. It is deeply bound up in colonization and conquest and often drives diplomacy. Armies march on their bellies. The need for staples and desire for luxury food bound together the interests of the Christian and Muslim Mediterranean and their global hinterlands. While we seldom eat our enemies, we do often covet their food, and sometimes we bring our own to the feast. From the medieval Islamicate “Green Revolution” to the stream of spices coming in along the “Silk Roads,” to the culinary transformations of the Colombian Exchange, the Mediterranean has been a crucible of culinary innovation and food looms large in our image of the Mediterranean and in the mind of its inhabitants.
The Mediterranean Seminar and the University of Oregon at Eugene invite papers that deal with any aspect of the production, distribution, consumption or representation of food and foodways in the Mediterranean world from Antiquity to the present, whether literal or metaphorical, historical or imagined, as seen from disciplinary perspectives as diverse economic, social, cultural, or political history, literature, history of philosophy, history of science and medicine, art and art history, musicology, anthropology or any related humanities and social science disciplines.
Proposals are welcome from scholars of all ranks from across all disciplines of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, as are papers from the Sciences, that engage in the broadest sense with social, historical and cultural aspects of the Mediterranean language, linguistics, literature, culture, society, art, and social, economic and political history, as well as anthropology, sociology, and other related humanities and social science disciplines. Junior scholars, graduate students, contingent faculty, scholars of underrepresented communities, and those whose work engages with historically marginalized groups are particularly encouraged to apply.
Papers may address either specific case studies or larger historical, cultural, artistic or historiographical dynamics and apparatuses. Comparative, interdisciplinary, and methodologically innovative papers are of particular interest. Our Mediterranean world is construed as the center of the historical West, including southern Europe, the Near East and North Africa and stretching into continental Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Black Sea and Central Asia, and the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean. While our primary laboratory is the premodern Mediterranean, we welcome proposals from across historical eras, as well papers which focus on other regions in which analogous or related processes can be observed.
For the workshop program, we invite abstracts (250 words) for unpublished in-progress
articles or book or dissertation chapters relating directly or tangentially to food and foodways in the premodern Mediterranean.
To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your
proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV
(pdf).
The deadline for workshop proposals is 15 February 2026 via this form. Successful applicants will submit a 35-page (maximum) double-spaced unpublished paper-in-progress for pre-circulation by 3 May 2026.
For the three round-table conversations, we invite abstracts (±250 words) for position
papers that respond to one of the prompts below.
The deadline for application proposals is 15 February 2026 via this form.
Round-table presenters will submit a 3-5 page “position paper” in response to their round-table prompt by 13 May 2026. Position papers are informal “op-ed” pieces with minimal scholarly apparatus.
To complete the form you will need a (provisional) title and abstract (±250 words) of your
proposed presentation, a prose biographical paragraph (±250 words), and a 2-page CV(pdf).
Round-table topics
1. Production and Distribution: How were crops, products, ingredients and techniques of food production developed and disseminated across the Mediterranean world? How did production, dissemination and consumption of food shape Mediterranean economies and how did this intersect with specific communities and constituencies?
2. Consumption and Culture: Was there a “Mediterranean diet”? What was it and how did it evolve? What role did food have in social and cultural practices, and secular and religious rituals? What were the various manifestations of Mediterranean food culture and how did these vary over time, place and across ethno-religious communities?
3. Perceptions and Representations: How was food viewed and depicted in art and across the various genres of literature (including fiction and non-fiction, prose, poetry, and scientific, moral or religious texts)? What particular dynamics and tensions did this produce?
Given that only three workshop papers can be accepted, workshop applicants are encouraged to also apply for a round-table (using a separate form). Applicants are welcome to indicate more than one round-table topic if appropriate for their proposal.
This is an in-person meeting only. The workshop language is English. Participants agree to be present and actively participate in the entirety of the program.
Meals and accommodation will be provided for workshop presenters and for round-table presenters as budget permits.
Domestic air travel will be provided for workshop presenters only (international presenters up to $1000).
A separate call for non-presenting participants will go out in July.
This workshop is organized by Brian A. Catlos (University of Colorado Boulder), Sharon Kinoshita (University of California Santa Cruz) and David Wacks (University of Oregon). It is sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Schnitzer School for Global Studies and Languages, Oregon Humanities Center, Department of Romance Languages, Italian Program, Rutherford Middle East Initiative, Department of Religious Studies, Food Studies Program, Global Studies Institute, Global Justice Program, Harold Schnitzer Family Judaic Studies Program, European Studies Program, Department of History of Art and Architecture, and Department of Comparative Literature, together with the Mediterranean Seminar and the CU Mediterranean Studies Group.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages