CFP: Food-Symbolism in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Perspective (Hybrid EABS Annual Meeting, Toulouse, July 4-7), due date: 20 FEBRUARY

Dear Colleagues,

The program/research unit at EABS   “Food-Symbolism in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Perspective” invites proposals for the upcoming annual meeting of the EABS to be held in Toulouse, France 4-7 July 2022.

This is the call for papers for the 2022 hybrid meeting:

Food and Gender

Food studies in conversation with cultural anthropology have pointed out various including and excluding factors and strategies in this realm. We can define three types of food restrictions that contribute to the formation of communal identity: commensality-based regulations (e.g. racial segregation; religious purposes), preparer-based regulations (e.g. kashrut or halal butchery) and regulations concerning the status of food (clean – unclean; see Freidenreich). Food restrictions reflect conceptions of communal identity within a particular worldview. The three criteria will not be separated from one another, but should be subsumed in overlapping themes including scholarly perspectives informed by the study of the Ancient Near East, the Old Testament, the New Testament, Patristics and Judaic Perspectives.

At the EABS-Meeting 2022 in Toulouse the research unit will specifically address aspects of gender and food. Presentations might explore the gendered nature of food consumption and restriction, such as fasting. They might also investigate particular regulations for the priests, their wives and families/households, or the partaking of women (and minors or slaves) in ritual meals or other important socio-cultural contexts of eating and drinking. Can we find cultural or religious connections drawn between women or men and particular types of food or their preparation and consumption – perhaps in a discriminatory manner? Are we able to identify major differences between the aforementioned Eastern Mediterranean traditions, either horizontally or vertically? Another topic of interest is the connection of sexuality (seduction), food, and consumption in those textual traditions, especially in poetic and narrative texts. A further issue might be the failure of commensality.

 The research group is composed of more or less regular participants and of participants selected through an open call for papers. Interested scholars are welcome to attend. While comparative approaches are highly welcomed, cross-cultural comparison is no prerequisite for participation. 

The call for papers is open up to the 20 February 2022. 

It may be found at https://www.eabs.net/EABS/Research-Units/Research_Units/EABS_Research_Units/Food_Symbolism_in_Biblical_and_Extra_Biblical_Perspective.aspx

Queries may be addressed to the chairs (supra).

With best regards 

Michaela Bauks , bauks "at" uni-koblenz.de

Christina Risch, crisch "at" uni-koblenz.de

 Lennart Lehmhaus, lennart.lehmhaus "at" uni-tuebingen.de