Van 8 tot en met 11 juni 2009 vindt aan het Italiaanse Comomeer een conferentie plaats rond de benadering van populaire cultuurfenomenen als muziek, theater, film en sport binnen een Europese context. Eén van de thema's die aan bod zullen komen, is eetcultuur. Momenteel loopt er een oproep voor papers, specifiek rond de geschiedenis van Europese voeding en eetcultuur.

Uit de oproep:

"Whereas Europe as a political and economic project has received much scholarly attention, the European dimension of popular culture – the movies, books and sport events, the music, theatre and television, the fashion, food and tourism which are all aimed at a mass market and are meant to entertain – has been neglected. This is somewhat surprising as popular culture is generally perceived as a prime medium of social integration and the construction of identity.

Against this backdrop, the planned conference suggests to scrutinise the consumption and production of a European popular culture and its societal effects. It wants to assess its current state in regard to historical developments, explore its potential for European social integration and identify factors that have facilitated or impeded its Europeanization. To this end we have invited researchers at post-doc stage or near completion of their doctoral thesis to present studies that deal with the consumption and/or production of popular culture in one area from music, food, tourism, sport, fashion and news/fiction in mass media.

For the sections on food, headed by Jonathan Morris (Hertfordshire), and fashion, chaired by Lise Skov (Copenhagen) we are looking for two contributions, covering for instance similarities and differences in taste within Europe, the inscription of local meaning into global products, networks of producers, the role of the media in the popularization of European food and fashion and the influence of EU legislation on the industries.

The conference is going to take place June, 8-11, 2009, at the German-Italian Centre Villa Vigoni (Lake Como). Applicants may send an exposé of their paper of no more than 600 words to the coordinators of the conference, Patrick Merziger (p.merziger@fu-berlin) or Klaus Nathaus (klaus.nathaus@uni-bielefeld.de), as soon as possible. Please add a brief CV and a list of publications."