CFP: Food, Culture, and the Law

The field of food studies has grown enormously over the last

decade, as evidenced in part by the steadily increasing number

of academics and professionals in the humanities, social and

nutrition sciences, culinary arts, and hospitality studies who

have become engaged in cross-disciplinary conversations about

food. Operating in tandem with the explosion of popular

fascination with food, these conversations have been joined of

late by academics, attorneys, and activists who are

particularly concerned with the question of how our

relationship to food is, has been, and should be, mediated

through law. In response to this emerging area of inquiry, we

are soliciting both conference papers and publishable essays

that integrate multidisciplinary scholarship in food studies

with legal scholarship related to food in existing fields such

as agricultural, constitutional, criminal, administrative,

tort, intellectual property, and international trade law.

Among the questions we hope to answer are: How might one

account for the law’s varying treatment of food over time

and/or cross-culturally? What role does law play in shaping

cultural ideas about food production, trade, and consumption?

And, inversely, what role does food play in shaping ideas

about the law?

Initially we seek papers written from a variety of

perspectives appropriate for presentation at one or both of

the following conferences: the Association for the Study of

Law, Culture, and the Humanities (Suffolk University Law

School, Boston, April 3-4, 2009) and the Association for the

Study of Food and Society (details for the 2009 conference TBA

on the ASFS website). Although we aim to use these panels as

a partial foundation for creating the edited collection, we

are also happy to consider abstracts and articles from

potential contributors who are unable to attend either ASLCH

or ASFS. Finished essays should be of a quality suitable for

publication with an established university press and

reasonably accessible to a multidisciplinary audience of

scholars and students of the law, social sciences, and

humanities, as well as interested readers outside the academy.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

Intellectual property rights in food and recipes

Prison food, e.g., hunger strikes & force feeding, Nutraloaf

Last meals

Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in

the lap

Regulation of food, alcohol, and/or obesity

Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures

History of dietary laws and regulations

Geographical indications of origin

Farm subsidies and international trade law

Linguistic classification of food, e.g., kosher, 1st Growths,

Organic

Sumptuary laws

Famine and famine aid

Labeling, packaging, and branding

Rationing

Food stamps

Ethanol production and the food supply

Illegal food production, commerce, and consumption

Agricultural nuisance and zoning law

Food and environmental law

Please submit a paragraph author’s bio and an abstract of no

more than 500 words to Doris Witt (doris-witt@uiowa.edu),

Chris Buccafusco (cjb@law.uiuc.edu), AND Amy Dillard

(adillard@ubalt.edu). Abstracts for ASLCH are due by Oct. 1,

2008; abstracts for ASFS or for the essay collection alone are

due by Jan. 15, 2009. Please indicate clearly whether the

abstract is for ASLCH, ASFS, the essay collection, or some

combination thereof. Finished essays should be approximately

10,000 words in length and will be due on or before January 1,

2010.

In advance of submitting an abstract, please feel free to

contact Doris Witt, Christopher Buccafusco, or Amy Dillard

with any questions about the conference panels or the essay

collection.

All that said, yeah, I reach for the chocolate chip first.

Here’s another example of a good with the characteristic Sarah was thinking about in her original post: a desirable choice that is typically presented in a context where it is the least desirable of several options.

Fun size Almond Joy candy bars. My old law firm had an annual Halloween trick-or-treat event: people’s kids would dress up and go office-to-office on each floor. Very cute, and since it was a big firm, the kids ended up with LOTS of quality candy. (Seriously, I was kind of envious on behalf of my younger self.)

My offering was fun size candy bars. I learned that the Kit Kats, Reeses cups, Heaths, etc., would all disappear while most of the Almond Joys were still untouched. But by the end of the afternoon the bowl was empty.

All that said, yeah, I reach for the chocolate chip first.

Here’s another example of a good with the characteristic Sarah was thinking about in her original post: a desirable choice that is typically presented in a context where it is the least desirable of several options.

Fun size Almond Joy candy bars. My old law firm had an annual Halloween trick-or-treat event: people’s kids would dress up and go office-to-office on each floor. Very cute, and since it was a big firm, the kids ended up with LOTS of quality candy. (Seriously, I was kind of envious on behalf of my younger self.)

My offering was fun size candy bars. I learned that the Kit Kats, Reeses cups, Heaths, etc., would all disappear while most of the Almond Joys were still untouched. But by the end of the afternoon the bowl was empty.

I like oatmeal as oatmeal, as porridge. Why that belongs in a cookie — with raisins, no less, which are the root of all evil — is mystifying to me. Chocolate, brown suger, butter — these are a few of my favorite things.

Begone, oatmeal raisin cookies.

Oatmeal raisin, you’re the worst

And insolate the tasty grape.

I applaud your courage in speaking out.

Oatmeal raisin, you’re the worst

And insolate the tasty grape.

I applaud your courage in speaking out.

No.