All Posts By

EuropeNow

September 2018

By the EuropeNow Editorial Committee

Here are this month’s editor’s picks from Research Editorial Committee members Hélène Ducros (Geography), Daniela Irrera (International Relations), Samantha Lomb (History), Louie Dean Valencia-García (History), and Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn (Political Science).

Sociology of Knowledge and Food Systems

By Erica Morrell

What is knowledge? In this course, we will explore the rise of the authority of science across much of the globe. We will regard potential problems with and challenges to science’s dominant position, and we will analyze whether and how other forms of knowledge may shape contemporary social, cultural, and political life. Practical cases to illustrate these dynamics will draw from the food system, and we will conduct significant engagement with our local community’s emergency food system to translate theoretical concepts around knowledge into practice.

Food, Food Systems, and Agriculture

By Hélène B. Ducros

The articles and interviews included here clearly convey that food stands as an entry point into a wide range of contemporary and historical debates that touch all humans. What is more, they also indicate that food operates as a spatial and temporal link across a complex web of interconnected social, cultural, political, economic, environmental, demographic, nutritional, and physiological topics

Superfood or Dangerous Drug? Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate in the Late 17th Century

By Ken Albala

We are all too familiar today with the wildly exaggerated health claims made for so-called super foods. Often based loosely on clinical research, the underlying motivation for these claims is, of course, selling new products. Foods are likewise demonized with the same motives, here too pushing a new line and maximizing profit underlies the latest fad diets that ban whole classes of food.

The Condition of Secrecy: Essays by Inger Christensen

Translated by Susanna Nied

When I was nine years old, the world too was nine years old. At least there was no difference between us, no opposition, no distance. We just tumbled around from sunrise to sunset, earth and body as like as two pennies. And there was never a harsh word between us, for the simple reason that there were no words at all between us; we never uttered a word to each other, the world and I.

Famine and Dearth in Medieval England

By Phillipp Schofield

While we have a general sense of famine events in this period and some inroads into exploring the extent and impact of famine and dearth, there is also a great deal we do not know about famine in the middle ages. In fact, our ignorance in regards to famine reflects a more general gap in our understanding of medieval society.

Peas in Queues

Curated by Nicole Shea

Tjalf Sparnaay’s oil paintings highlight the beauty of the contemporary commonplace while David Hicks draws his inspiration from the beauty of farm lands surrounding his home.