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Tennessee Workshop in Food, Agriculture, and Society

How has the struggle to feed and clothe the human species influenced culture, politics, economy, and environment from the Neolithic era to the present day? How has the production and consumption of food both reinforced and challenged human divisions of race, class, and gender? This research seminar seeks answers to such broad questions, convening scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and biophysical sciences to ponder the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. A truly interdisciplinary forum, the seminar will showcase food studies research at the University of Tennessee in addition to hosting a range of visiting scholars.

Current Events

Meetings held in the Humanities Center Seminar Room E102 Melrose Hall (first floor) unless otherwise indicated.

Fall 2017

  • Wednesday, Sept 6, 2017
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Christopher Magra, Associate Professor, History
    "Building Warships and Making Chocolate:  Food Production and Military Expansion in Early America"
  • Wednesday, September 27, 2017
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Stephen Collins-Elliott, Assistant Professor, Classics
    "Roman Wine Production in the Middle Republic: Ritual Demand or Capitalist Investment?"
  • Wednesday, October 25, 2017
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Tom Gill, Assistant Professor, UT Institute of Agriculture
    “Chickens and change: piloting small-scale broiler production with Rwandan households”
  • Wednesday, November 15, 2017
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Caela O'Connell, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
    “Saving Cents Doesn’t Always Make Sense: Farmer nutrient management decision making in the US”
  • Wednesday, December 6, 2017
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Guest: Kathryn Sampeck, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Illinois State University
    "Agricultural practices and productivity of cacao from late pre-Columbian practices to contemporary dynamics"

Spring 2018

  • Wednesday, January 24, 2018
    11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
    Jerolyn Morrison - University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
    “Can Animal/Fish Bones and Experimental Archaeology Help Us Better Understand Minoan Cooking Techniques?”
  • Wednesday, February 14, 2018
    12:00-1:00 p.m.
    Tore Olsson, Assistant Professor, History
    “The Global Hillbilly: How Country Music Traveled – and Transformed – the Twentieth Century World”
  • Wednesday, March 7, 2018
    12:00-1:00 p.m.
    Kandace Hollenbach, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
    “Of Flooding and Farming:  The Late Archaic to Early Woodland Transition in East Tennessee”
  • Wednesday, April 11, 2018 - Canceled
    12:00-1:00 p.m.
    Denise Phillips, Associate Professor, History
    “The Enlightenment's Most Famous Peasant: Farmer Kleinjogg and Agricultural Improvement in the Eighteenth Century”

Past Events

Spring 2016

  • Friday, February 17
    12-1 pm
    Guest speaker - Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Assistant Professor of Food Studies, Syracuse University
    "The New American Farmer: Race, Immigration, and the Struggle for Sustainability
  • Friday, March 10
    12-1 pm
    Guest speaker - Gabe Rosenberg, Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Duke University
    "The Trial of the Scrub Sire: Animal Gender and Eugenic Logics in the USDA's 'Better Sires-Better Stock' Campaign, 1919-1940"
  • Friday, April 7
    12-1 pm
    Stephen Collins-Elliott, Assistant Professor of Classics
    "Wine Consumption in Republican Rome: Commerce, Status, and Luxury in a Failing State"
  • Friday, April 21
    12-1 pm
    Kandi Hollenbach, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
    “How Cultivation Led to Changes in Land Use and Social Structure in Tuckaleechee Cove 3000 Years Ago”
  • Friday, May 5
    12-1 pm
    Reflections on semester, planning for next year, group discussion of "the anthropocene"

Fall 2016

  • Friday, Aug. 26
    12-1 pm
    Introductory meeting; discussion of Kolbert, "Stone Soup"
  • Friday, Sept. 23
    12-1 pm
    Tore Olsson, Assistant Professor of History
    "Green Revolutionaries: The Techno-politics of Agriculture in the U.S. and Mexico"
  • Friday, Oct. 28
    12-1 pm
    Guest speaker - Dr. Thomas Rogers, Associate Professor of History, Emory University
    "Agriculture's Energy: Development and Hunger during Brazil's Ethanol Boom"
  • Friday, Nov. 18
    12-1 pm
    Neal Eash, Professor of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science
    "Agriculture and Climate Change"
  • Friday, Dec. 9
    12-1 pm
    Guest speaker - Dr. Stephen Carmody, Postdoctoral Fellow in Archeology, Sewanee University
    "The Origins of Agriculture in the Prehistoric Southeastern U.S."

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