26 Marzo 2026
FOOD: HISTORY, SCIENCE AND EXPERIENCE
Multidisciplinary Perspectives Drawing from Steven Shapin’s Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves (University of Chicago Press, 2024)
4–5 December 2025 – Aula Magna, University of Pollenzo
The University of Pollenzo is pleased to announce the international conference “Food: History, Science and Experience,” a two-day multidisciplinary event inspired by Steven Shapin’s acclaimed volume Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves (University of Chicago Press, 2024). The symposium will bring together leading scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and food studies to explore how food shapes our understanding of history, science, culture, and lived experience.
Programme
4 December 2025 – Aula Magna
2:45 pm – Opening Speech and Institutional Greetings
Nicola Perullo, Rector
3:00 pm – What is the History of Food the History Of?
Steven Shapin, Harvard University
3:45 pm – History and Ways of Reasoning about Food
Paolo Savoia, University of Bologna
4:30 pm – Break
4:45 pm – Free-from: the Rise and Fall of Sugar in Contemporary Dietetics
Ilaria Ventura Bordenca, University of Palermo
5:30 pm – Recent Retellings: the “New Nutrition Science Project” and Moral Expertise over Nutrition
Lisa Haushofer, University of Amsterdam
Chair: Gabriele Proglio, University of Pollenzo
5 December 2025 – Aula Magna
9:30 am – Conceding Lived Experience
Kenneth Liberman, University of Oregon
10:15 am – Eating and Appearing: Conflicts and Negotiations
Gianfranco Marrone, University of Palermo
11:00 am – Break
11:15 am – History of Science and Popular Proverbs
Massimo Montanari, University of Bologna
Chair: Andrea Borghini, University of Milan
12:00 pm – Final Remarks and Discussion
Coordinated by Flavio D’Abramo, University of Pollenzo
This conference is organized within the framework of PRIN 2022 PNRR “GOLA. Representation of gastronomic culture, nutrition and food in the Italian media system. Stardom, material culture, taste (1954–1990).”
Mission 4 – Education and Research
Funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU
Project CUP: D53D23019750001 – Project Code: P2022NWC3W
