Tag: Food and Nutrition

Reconstructing the Measure and Meaning of Obesity

Obesity is a worldwide problem, and affecting more people all the time. In their timely collection, editors Jessica Hardin and Megan McCullough examine this growing epidemic in their soon-to-be-released book, Reconstructing Obesity: The Meaning of Measures and the Measure of Meanings.The editors analyze the cultural causes and effects to open a new discussion about fatness and obesity.

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I asked my students, fresh off a lively discussion about dieting and religious fasting, if any of them would consider taking a new course I was designing called,“Fatness and Obesities.” Only one student raised her hand. What if I change the course’s title – but not its content – to “The Politics of Body Size”? At this suggestion, they all raised their hands. What is the difference?

-Jessica Hardin

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Hot Off the Presses – New Paperback Releases

CoyHolyNewly released paperbacks from Berghahn:

Foodways and Empathy: Relatedness in a Ramu River Society, Papua New Guinea, Anita von Poser

Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s, Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt, and Kristin McGuire

The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered, Jason Philip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, and David Warren Sabean

Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979: The ‘Normalization of Rule’?, Mary Fulbrook

“Vienna is Different”: Jewish Writers in Austria from the fin de siècle to the Present, Hillary Hope Herzog

Divided, but not Disconnected: German Experiences of the Cold War, Tobias Hochscherf, Christoph Laucht, and Andrew Plowman

Book launch for Foodscapes, Foodfields, and Identities in Yucatán

On September 20, 2012, a special presentation of Foodscapes, Foodfields, and Identities in Yucatán was held at  the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán where author Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz is Professor of Anthropology. Along with Ayora Diaz, scholars Ramona Perez, Sarah Bak-Geller, and Francisco Fernández Repetto discussed the book from both historical and anthropological perspectives. Fittingly, a reception featuring just one of Yucatán’s culinary specialties, cohchinita pibil, followed.

Click here for pictures of the event. Video footage of the presentation can be found here [in Spanish]