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 guest speakers to conduct lectures and participate in panel discussions on issues concerning the ethics, aesthetics, quality, security and theory of food.

Roger Scruton, Uomo Universale

Roger Scruton is the author of a great number of philosophical books, more recent publications include “On Pessimism”, “On Beauty”, and “Understanding Music – Philosophy and Interpretation”. He gave a lecture at ECLA in the past on “Hegel’s conception of private property and its critics”. Roger Scruton lives on a farm in the English countryside, where he and his wife have been enhancing the ancient field patterns by replanting hedges, restoring ponds and growing trees to encourage wildlife. He writes on his website: “I graduated from Cambridge University in 1965, spent two years abroad and then pursued an academic career in philosophy, first in Cambridge, and then in London, until 1990, when I took a year’s leave of absence to work for an educational charity in Czechoslovakia. (This charity grew from the ‘underground university’ which colleagues and I had established in the last decade of communism.) I then taught part-time at Boston University Massachusetts until the end of 1994, while building up a public affairs consultancy in Eastern Europe. Since then I have been a free-lance writer and consultant, taking on short-term contracts when necessary. I currently hold three positions: visiting professor (unpaid) at Oxford University, where I am also a Fellow at Blackfriars Hall; visiting professor (part-time) in the Philosophy Department at St Andrews, where I shall be from the end of March until the beginning of May; and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, where I am currently pursuing a project on the cultural impact of neuroscience. Since 1996 I have been married to Sophie, and we have two children, Sam, born in 1998 and Lucy, born in 2000.”

Yofi Tirosh, Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law

Dr. Yofi Tirosh earned her LL.B. from the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, and her LL.M. and doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School, where she served as a fellow at Michigan’s Humanities Institute. Before joining the Israeli Bar, she clerked for Hon. Justice Mishael Cheshin at Israel’s Supreme Court. After spending 2007 at NYU Law School, where she was a Hauser Global Research Fellow, she joined Tel Aviv University’s Buchman Faculty of Law, where she teaches employment and labor law, jurisprudence, antidiscrimination law, food law, and feminist legal theory. She is a board member of Israeli human rights NGOs, including Itach-Maaki: Women Lawyers for Social Justice, and Tmura: The Israeli Antidiscrimination Legal Center.

Andrea Pieroni, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenza

Andrea Pieroni is Professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenza since 2009, and held posts at the University of Bradford, in the Netherlands and in London before. His research interests concern the common boundaries of Human Ecology, Medical and Food Ethnobiology/Ethnobotany, and Anthropology of Food/Medical Anthropology, i.e. the interdisciplinary studies on the perceptions and uses of plants in local diets and in traditional medicines, and their impact on the environment, the human and animal health, and the society at large. In particular, he is interested in food ethnobotany (the traditional knowledge of uses and management/ecology of food plants, esp. wild and neglected taxa); traditional medicines (use of medicinal plants, “food-medicines”, and other biological and ritual remedies, provision of health care within the households via diets and emic healing strategies; ethnoveterinary (the traditional knowledge of plants used as fodder, for healing animals, or for improving the quality of dairy and other animal-derived food products).

Jim Cohn, Quest University Canada

Dr. Jim Cohn is the Chief Academic Officer at Quest University Canada, and serves as tutor for the arts and humanities. Before coming to Quest he had been teaching in the St. John’s College Great Books program for fifteen years. Adept in the Socratic method of questioning students, Jim has led courses in math, lab science, music, art, languages, literature and philosophy. For his Ph.D. Jim attended the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the direction of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow and wrote his dissertation on Proust and Saint-Simon. Jim graduated summa cum laude in French and German from Dartmouth College. As an undergraduate, he studied abroad in Toulouse, France and in Mainz, Germany. Outside of class, he wrote a column for the college newspaper and participated in canoe club expeditions. After graduation, he held a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Cologne, and later studied Russian in Moscow. When he’s not working, Jim is likely to be skiing at Whistler or hiking or mountain biking in Squamish. He enjoys writing and woodworking, and always has furniture projects pending for his wife and two daughters.

Frank Armstrong, Oxford

Frank Armstrong is currently researching a book on Irish food culture, and has been writing on the subject of food for the Spectator as well as for the London Magazine. Frank likes to incorporate aspects of history, anthropology and sociology into his writing. He is an experienced teacher, and currently teaches British history and the sociology of food in St Clare’s College in Oxford, as part of a special Liberal Arts programme.

Paolo Tullio, Dublin

Author, critic, chef, actor and broadcaster, Paolo Tullio is the former chef/proprietor of the Michelin-starred Armstrong’s Barn restaurant in Wicklow. Paolo is also the host and the author of “Foodandwine.net”, a site dedicated to the joys of food and wine. He is the restaurant reviewer and wine correspondent for the Irish Independent newspaper and regularly contributes to Food & Wine magazine. He has published three books, North of Naples, South of Rome – an anecdotal tour of his part of Italy, mushroom.man, a novel set on the internet and most recently Paolo Tullio Cooks Italian, a book of his favourite Italian recipes. Paolo presented the television series “North of Naples, South of Rome” on RTÉ and has featured in many films such as The Butcher Boy, The General, The Tailor of Panama and most recently John Boorman’s The Tiger’s Tale.

Melanie Rehak, New York

Melanie Rehak is the author of Eating for Beginners: An Education in the Pleasures of Food from Chefs, Farmers and One Picky Kid (2010) and Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (2005). She writes a column of food books for Bookforum, and has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Vogue, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and many other publications. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two sons. She spent the 2008-2009 academic year in Berlin, and hopes to return for a long visit again soon.

Victoria Rietig, Fairfood Berlin

Victoria Rietig is the project leader at Fairfood International, an NGO working in the area of fair trade and sustainable development. She is in charge of building up the organization’s Berlin office and is responsible for Fairfood’s communication on sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility in Germany. Prior to this, Victoria worked as a consultant for the New York Office of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), where she developed and implemented seminars on international law and policy. Victoria received her M.A. degree in American Studies, History and Psychology after studies at Freie Universität Berlin, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina), and New York University.

Dan Fennelly, Dublin/Galway

Dan Fennelly has worked in food and wine in Ireland for over a decade. He first developed his passion for food during his studies at Trinity College Dublin where he read History. He also holds a Masters of Science in Sustainable Development from the Dublin Institute of Technology and is a graduate of the renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School. Dan’s career in artisan food began in earnest when he became manager of Sheridans’ Cheesemongers in Dublin in 2003. Hitherto he had worked as a chef and ran his own catering company. At Sheridans he learnt the importance of nurturing and developing close relationships with artisan food producers, and the role of the specialty food distributor/ retailer in the education of consumers. During his time in Sheridans he was involved in all aspects of the Retail and Wholesale business, in particular the sourcing of cheeses, olive oil, chocolate and wine; quality control; and flavour profiling. In 2005 he represented Ireland in the International Caseus Cheese Skills Competition in Lyon, winning the cheese-selling round, and coming fifth overall. Dan has also lectured extensively on Irish cheese in Ireland, France and Italy and has written articles for the Irish Times; Food and Wine Magazine; and Business and Finance magazine. He has recently finished a major publication on Irish Farmhouse Cheeses for An Bord Bia, the State’s food promotion board, and hopes to write a book on Irish Farmhouse Cheese in the next 12 months.

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