Italy Day June 11

Who doesn't think of Italian food, pizza, pasta and gelato when they think of Italy? But food is never just food. From the late medieval banquets with their show dishes to today's state banquets, food turns out to be a highly political affair, and not only there. Gastronomy and culinary arts are embedded as cultural practices in political, social, but also in aesthetic and artistic references. These will be examined with a view to Italy and Italian food and political culture and their interconnections.

The fourth Italy Day at the University of Kassel will bring together lectures by five Italian and German scholars who will address Italian "matters of taste" from philosophical, historical, literary and artistic perspectives. The lectures discuss the art of eating from an aesthetic-theoretical perspective, food in Italian painting, cookbooks and nation-building, the Italianization of international taste, and Italian food in literature and film.

Program:
13:00 Introduction
13:20 Prof. Dr. Nicola Perullo (Università di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo): Cibo, cucina, arte
14:00-14:30 PAUSE
14:30 Dr. Anke Auch (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg): Food and drink keeps body
and soul together - and the nation. Pellegrino Artusi's "La scienza in cucina e l'arte di
mangiar bene" (1891) as a contribution to nation building
15:10 Sabine Knappe (historian, food journalist) The Italianization of Taste. How the simple pleasure became an international kitchen trend
15:50-16:20 PAUSE
16:20 Prof. Dr. Christine Ott (Goethe University Frankfurt): "Spaghettifresser" yesterday and today. Literary and Cinematic Meals in the Transculturality Debate
17:00 Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt (Kunsthochschule Kassel): "A Remarkable Cuisine" - Examples from Italian Painting of the Early Renaissance