Rewilding Food and the Self

We would like to invite you to the "Rewilding Food and the Self" conference that we are organizing on Thursday September 28 at The American University of Paris. Please find the program below.

This conference – and the book on which it is based – aims to decipher a movement towards the wild, which is at the origin of a new food narrative enjoining us to rewild ourselves for health reasons, but also and perhaps above all for moral and political considerations. We'll be talking about the romanticization of the past, the commodification of nature, self-optimization, and nutritional primitivism. The field surveys to be presented and discussed – in English and French – have been carried out in six European countries, and cover such topics as the consumption of game meat, the revival of fasting, the market for "natural" wine, and the urban gathering of edible plants.

The event closes with a tasting of 'wild wines'! It's all free, but you'll need to register here and show proof of identity to gain entry to The American University of Paris (6 rue du Colonel Combes, 75007).

Program

9h30 Accueil

10h00 Christy Shields Argelès: Welcome

10h15 Tristan Fournier et Sébastien Dalgalarrondo: Food, self and search for the wild

Part 1: The taste for tradition and the hunter-gatherer model

11h00 Olivier Lepiller: Eating wild game: a new carnivory morality?

11h20 Discussion: Jean-Pierre Hassoun

12h00 Buffet

Part 2 : Promises and market

13h30 Christelle Pineau : “Natural wines”: the call of the wild grape

13h50 Sébastien Dalgalarrondo et Tristan Fournier: The promises of fasting : animal and primitive models

14h10 Discussion: Christy Shields Argelès

15h00 Break

Part 3 : The wild at the interstices: a route to empowerment?

15h20 Flaminia Paddeu et Fabien Roussel : Foraging plants within the urban margins : on the possibilities of living with nature in the greater Paris

15h40 Nicoletta Diasio et Vulca Fidolini : The wild side of man: how animal metaphors shape masculine food practices and midlife transitions

16h00 Gun Roos : Heavy food and being in nature : revisiting male manual workers’ narratives on work, food and health

16h20 Discussion : Hélène Guétat Bernard

17h00 Wine tasting