Wednesday, October 24, 2007

 

CSFC Speaker Series: Landscapes of Fruit, Cityscapes of Profit, This Tuesday

CSFC Speakers Series:
Erica Hannickel

American Studies, University of Iowa

“Landscapes of Fruit, Cityscapes of Profit: Fruit Speculation in the Antebellum Midwest”



12:00-1:30PM
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Davis Humanities Institute Conference Room
228 Voorhies Hall
University of California, Davis

Ad from Longworth's Wine House 1866
This image comes from a pamphlet advertising Nicholas Longworth’s wines, Longworth’s Wine House (1866)

Abstract:
Nineteenth century public memory records that famous fruit speculators Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) and Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863) were enigmatic yet beneficent characters. Both fruit entrepreneurs altered the early Ohio landscape, brought new types of alcohol (one hard cider, the other refined wine) to the new West, and continued a national interest in fruit culture in the growing regional center. But beyond their place in frontier myth, Appleseed and Longworth are early models of a type of agricultural imperialism and capitalist accumulation previously thought to begin in California decades later. Indeed, and in antebellum Ohio, no less, “Johnny” and “Old Nick” used their fruits as expansionist tools in the soon-to-be-solidified Midwestern frontier zone of capitalist speculation. The imperial, racial, and class tensions of the orchard and vineyard are registered in many further cultural locations. Charles Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine” (1887) illustrates that alcohol production, real estate investment, labor exploitation, and fruit growing were not-so-strange bedfellows in the 19th century. Commercial viticulture provided easy justification for turning public property into private property, legitimating neo-slavery techniques of sharecropping and cheap land sale, and divorcing local ways of knowing and senses of place from their long-standing basis in the land.

Erica Hannickel is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Iowa. She is finishing her dissertation, An Imperial Vineland: Commercial Grape Growing in 19th Century America, on an American Association of University Women (AAUW) fellowship this year. A native of Rocklin, California, she received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego and MA in American Studies at CSU Fullerton. When not researching and writing, she is an avid organic gardener and yogi.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

 

Thinking After Derrida: Davis Derrida Day

The conference "Thinking After Derrida: Davis Derrida Day" will take place on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at the University Club Conference Center of the University of California, Davis from 10:00 a.m.—6:15 p.m. Hosted by the UC Davis Graduate Program in Critical Theory, the event will include lectures by Karen Embry, Martin Jay, Peggy Kamuf, Gerhard Richter, ScottShershow, and David Simpson. The event is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

 

Will We Be Able to Eat in the Future?

--from South End Press----

Will We Be Able to Eat in the Future?


"Compared with a bunch of carrots," writes
the acclaimed author of The Omnivore's
Dilemma, "a package of Twinkies is a
highly complicated, high-tech piece of
manufacture, involving no fewer than 39
ingredients, many themselves elaborately
manufactured.... So how can the supermarket
possibly sell a pair of these synthetic
cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a
bunch of roots?"


Why are Twinkies cheaper than carrots?

The answer to Michael Pollan's own question
is the US Farm Bill, a "resolutely
unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated
piece of legislation, which comes around
roughly every five years and is about to do
so again, [setting] the rules for the
American food system-indeed, to a
considerable extent, for the world's food
system."

In favoring industrial agriculture over local
and family-run farms, the current farm bill
quite literally underwrites-politically and
financially-a devastating exploitation of the
earth's resources. It prepares the soil for
what Carlo Petrini describes as "an
unsustainable food situation that is beyond
madness." The founder of Slow Food, a
worldwide movement of 80,000 people dedicated
to food that is "good, clean, and fair,"
Petrini has long sought to reveal the deep
connections between what we eat and the
health of not only our bodies but also our
economies and environment-as Time notes, he
"has changed the way we think about eating."

In her introduction to Manifestos on the
Future of Food and Seed
, world-renowned
physicist and environmental leader Vandana
Shiva
("a burst of creative energy, an
intellectual power"--The Progressive) gives
this madness a name and frightening diagnosis
of her own: "Industrial food is cheap not
because it is efficient . . . but because it is
supported by subsidies and it externalizes
all costs--the wars, the diseases, the
environmental destruction, the cultural
decay, the social disintegration."

But are there alternatives? Yes, say the
5,000 farmers, traders, and activists who
gathered at Terra Madre to clearly and
convincingly lay out a guiding set of
principles to reverse perhaps the worst food
crisis in human history. Their analysis,
alongside contributions by Michael Pollan,
Prince Charles, the International Commission
on the Future of Food and Agriculture, and
more, is presented in Manifestos: a
pocket-sized and galvanizing collection that
grapples with these enormous questions,
daring to imagine a food system-a world-that
is sustainable, healthy, and ultimately, just.

As Jamey Lionette, who runs a small
independent sustainable food market in
Boston, writes, "With peak oil and climate
catastrophe looming, local and clean food
becomes more than just romanticized food
culture; it becomes essential." Plainly, if
we are to continue to eat, we must heed the
wisdom of these manifestos.

--from South End Press----

Saturday, October 06, 2007

 

CSFC Fall Reception

CSFC Fall Reception


Critical Studies in Food and Culture will be holding a Fall Reception, Wednesday October 24th at 6pm in 3201 Hart hall, at UC Davis so the wide array of scholars pursuing interesting work in the study of food and food cultures can meet to discuss their research interests, announce new initiatives, and contribute their ideas for enhancing the critical investigations in food and consumption studies.

We will be announcing a few additions to the CSFC Speaker's Series, and recruiting presenters for our Project Workshops. Whether you have a project, or you are simply curious about the study of food and consumption in the humanities and social sciences, you are encouraged to attend.

CSFC Fall Reception
3201 Hart Hall on the UC Davis campus,
Wednesday 6PM, October 24, 2007.

Food and drinks will be served (and studied).

 

CSFC Speakers Series: Landscapes of Fruit, Cityscapes of Profit

Save the Date:
CSFC Speakers Series:
Erica Hannickel

American Studies, University of Iowa

“Landscapes of Fruit, Cityscapes of Profit: Fruit Speculation in the Antebellum Midwest”



12:00-1:30PM
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Davis Humanities Institute Conference Room
228 Voorhies Hall
University of California, Davis

Ad from Longworth's Wine House 1866
This image comes from a pamphlet advertising Nicholas Longworth’s wines, Longworth’s Wine House (1866)

Abstract:
Nineteenth century public memory records that famous fruit speculators Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) and Nicholas Longworth (1783-1863) were enigmatic yet beneficent characters. Both fruit entrepreneurs altered the early Ohio landscape, brought new types of alcohol (one hard cider, the other refined wine) to the new West, and continued a national interest in fruit culture in the growing regional center. But beyond their place in frontier myth, Appleseed and Longworth are early models of a type of agricultural imperialism and capitalist accumulation previously thought to begin in California decades later. Indeed, and in antebellum Ohio, no less, “Johnny” and “Old Nick” used their fruits as expansionist tools in the soon-to-be-solidified Midwestern frontier zone of capitalist speculation. The imperial, racial, and class tensions of the orchard and vineyard are registered in many further cultural locations. Charles Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine” (1887) illustrates that alcohol production, real estate investment, labor exploitation, and fruit growing were not-so-strange bedfellows in the 19th century. Commercial viticulture provided easy justification for turning public property into private property, legitimating neo-slavery techniques of sharecropping and cheap land sale, and divorcing local ways of knowing and senses of place from their long-standing basis in the land.

Erica Hannickel is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Iowa. She is finishing her dissertation, An Imperial Vineland: Commercial Grape Growing in 19th Century America, on an American Association of University Women (AAUW) fellowship this year. A native of Rocklin, California, she received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego and MA in American Studies at CSU Fullerton. When not researching and writing, she is an avid organic gardener and yogi.

Monday, October 01, 2007

 

CFP: White Corn Project / in honor of John Mohawk's Life and Work

4th Annual Storytellers Conference honoring John C. Mohawk, his life and his work
Location: New York, United States
Call for Papers Date: 2007-11-01
Date Submitted: 2007-08-26
Announcement ID: 157942
From March 28 to March 30, 2008 -- The Fourth Annual Storytellers of the Americas Conference will honor the life and work of John C. Mohawk through storytelling and through academic papers relating to the many and varied fields in which Dr. Mohawk worked throughout his life. This conference will be hosted at the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, New York. We seek proposals for academic papers related to John Mohawk, his life, and work. Panels include but are not limited to:

(1) Iroquois White Corn Project, including issues of slow food, contemporary cuisine, farming, and native nutrition; Indigenous Stories within their own culture, including creation stories, ceremonies, and histories (2) Environmental concerns, including historical climate change, contemporary global warming, the effects on indigenous peoples, and survival advice offered by indigenous prophecies (3) Indigenous History, including government, law, resistance, land rights, and development; Modernity and the West, including the European projects of white supremacy, colonization, and domination by the sword, by the pen, and by any means available.

As this is a Storytellers Conference, we invite you to tell stories related to the above. Stories will be told in a special session, wrapping up the conference, on Sunday, March 30, 2008.

Please feel free to suggest other panel topics.
Storytellers of Americas Conference Organizing Committee c/o Nikki Dragone (dragonnd2@gmail.com); and, Amber Adams (ambermeadowadams@verizon.net); and, Ula Piasta (ulapiasta@yahoo.com).
Email: dragonnd2@gamil.com

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