Call for Papers:

FOOD AND CULTURE AREA
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference (Southwest/Texas region)*
Albuquerque, NM
February 14-17, 2007
http://www.h-net.org/~swpca/

==SPECIAL PANEL TOPIC==

How Do We Do Food Studies?: A Series of Methodological Conversations

The field of food studies continues to grow both within the academy and in popular journalism, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines who each use food and eating as a lens through which to examine social life, history, literature, technology, film and much more. This interdisciplinary communication is productive but also brings
up complex questions about how food research is (and ought to
be) approached.

At the upcoming Food and Culture Area meeting of the Southwest Popular Culture/American Culture Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we are creating a series of panels and papers that focus on the central question: how do we do food studies? By foregrounding our methods—the rationale behind them as well as their benefits and drawbacks—we can all gain insight into the diversity of our field. In addition, these cross-disciplinary conversations can also help us to think about the future of food studies as not only a research topic but also an academic practice.

To this end, we invite papers that discuss food studies from a methodological perspective. For example, papers could take on the methodological tensions between the interdisciplinary nature of food and the disciplinary constraints of academia; "unpack" a specific methodology often used in food studies (e.g. feminist food-centered narratives & life stories, the food voice, material and cultural analyses, media studies, single food-specific studies, historiographies, literary
critiques, and/or image-based research); and/or propose new methodologies or directions that would benefit the field of food studies.

To submit a paper please send your abstract (250-750 words)and contact information (email, phone, university affiliation, grad/staff/faculty) by December 1, 2006 to:

Melissa Salazar
Food and Culture Area Co-Chair
PCA/ACA Conference
Email: mlsalazar@ucdavis.edu
School of Education/UC Davis
One Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616

*Attendees and their food-related research are not limited to the the special call for papers listed here, and are encouraged from other areas of food studies. The Food and Culture Area of the SW/TX PCA/ACA Conference offers scholars a unique opportunity to present their food-related work in a small setting within a much larger conference (the SW/TX is the largest of the PCA and ACA regional conferences). The Food and Culture panels do not overlap and participants are able to actively engage with others in their field by continuing to dialogue throughout the conference and at food-centered social events hosted by the F&C organiz