[ecrea] CfP Food is a Feminist Issue: Media, Bodies, Appetites

Food is a Feminist Issue: Media, Bodies, Appetites

30 June 2017

University of York, UK

In 1978 Susie Orbach declared fat a feminist issue. This slim volume of 
writing put forward a radical new understanding of feminine embodiment 
and the gendered psychology of eating. Taking place almost four decades 
later, this one-day conference will revisit the terrain explored by 
Orbach and open out new themes of analysis by examining contemporary 
feminist perspectives on food. Of particular concern are the ways in 
which food cultures intersect with or map onto broader social 
rationalities and political programmatics. These issues have been 
productively pursued in recent analyses of the shift in dieting 
discourse from a concern with weight to a preoccupation with health 
(Cairns & Johnston, 2015), alongside the turn to interiority as part of 
a more general revaluation of domesticity (Dejmanee, 2015). Yet there 
remains further work to be done here, particularly in light of changing 
patterns in the cultural landscape of postfeminism (Gill, 2016; 
McRobbie, 2015).

This event will bring together scholars from across a range of 
disciplinary locations — sociology, psychology, media and cultural 
studies, geography and social policy – to address questions such as: 
What does the continued stigmatisation of fatness and the heightened 
stylisation of fitness suggest about contemporary formations of 
femininity? How do new kinds of cultural intermediaries feed existing 
moral economies of consumer-citizenship? How can we understand the 
ubiquity of food-related content on social media? What does it mean for 
food to be so heavily mediated, and what role does media play in 
stimulating, curtailing, or managing appetites? How can feminist 
scholarship resist the tendency to moralise dietary practices while 
addressing inequalities and violences? How do we complicate logics of 
personal responsibility even as we strive for environmental 
sustainability?What might a feminist politics of food look like, and 
what kinds of tools and resources are needed for this?

We are pleased to confirm that Susie Orbach will open the conference 
with a keynote address. A round table featuring several leading feminist 
scholars will conclude the day’s discussions (full list of speakers to 
be confirmed).

Papers are invited on themes including but not limited to:

- Food work

- Aesthetic labour and beauty politics

- Corporeality and digital culture

- Healthism and the medicalisation of everyday life

- Consumption and entrepreneurship

- Bodies of knowledge and knowledge politics

- Dietary regimes and exceptional foodstuffs: ‘5: 2’, ‘clean’, ‘paleo’, 
‘superfoods’

- Metrics, quantification, algorithms, apps

- ‘Fitness’ as cultural idiom

- Narcissism and sexual politics

- The economics and politics of austerity

- Hunger

Abstracts of 250 words should be sent to: (foodisafeministissue /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(foodisafeministissue /at/ gmail.com)>

Please also include a short biographical note (50-100 words) with 
details of main research interests and current academic affiliation, if any.

Deadline for submissions: 14 April 2017


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