“WHAT SHALL WE EAT?” may be a polite invitation to choose something from a rich restaurant menu or a desperate exclamation of someone trying to scrape together a meal. This year’s State of the World Week, 7-11 February, 2011, starts with this question as an opening for discussions about ethics, aesthetics and politics of eating.
State of the World Week brings together theorists and practitioners to explore important themes in current affairs. As it always has been the aim of this event to bring theoretical discourse closer to practice, ECLA has invited 11 guest speakers to conduct lectures and participate in panel discussions on issues concerning the ethics, aesthetics, quality, security and theory of food.
BY BLERINA FANI
State of the World Week began with the issue of ethics and eating. The same debate has recently emerged between the most important institutions of the European Union.
Those of us who, during the course of the week, decide it is important to be able to cook one’s own food, can do during the cooking workshops.
Do we need food critics to tell us what is good food? Is the food that we eat more than just nourishment? Do our food choices define who we are?
Once upon a time there was a fast-food culture, and then came along the slow food movement. Not long ago, everyone was raving about molecular gastronomy. Suddenly, the regionally produced food is all the rage. What is food culture and who shapes it?
BY LUISA TOLU
Otto Pfeiffer’s food had been described as a mix and exchange of Asian and German cuisine so I was curious to see what flavours I would encounter at lunch. But what I found was that both the main and the dessert were closer to home than I could have imagined
Ours is the world of many forms of food crises and food disorders. Both food production and food consumption are tainted with smaller and bigger injustices, which sociologists, economists, lawyers, and activists all try to correct and mend.
The treatment of animals by conventional agriculture has become impossible to ignore and difficult not to condemn. Is the solution to find the way back to traditional cattle-farming or abandon eating meat, leaving behind our cultural habits and rituals? What are different ways of conceiving the relation between humans and animals?
State of the World Week
This annual ECLA event, held in the winter term, brings together students, faculty, alumni and invited guests for the exploration of some important, perhaps urgent, theme in current affairs. Lectures and seminars are given not just by academics, but by politicians, artists, social reformers, diplomats, lawyers, journalists and other people who spend their (professional) lives in close practical contact with the fundamental issues studied theoretically at ECLA. It is assumed that the voices of thoughtful experience will enrich theoretical discussions, and that theory may in turn inform practice. Recent State of the World Week topics include: The Translator (2010), The Politics of Cultural Ownership (2009), Water (2008), Social Entrepreneurship (2007). Twice, in 2007 and 2008, the event won a UNESCO award for education in sustainable development.