Join us on February 3rd at 3:00 PM in Coble Hall for a special lecture by Dr. Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis). The lecture titled "The Aesthetics and Intimacies of Food Sovereignty: Maíz Criollo in Gastronomy and Art," discusses maíz criollo (heirloom corn) through the theoretical intersection between the intimate co-evolution of Mesoamerican peoples with maize and the aesthetics materiality of food in in neoliberalism. The paper will address the biocultural forms of life tied to maize, both historically and in the present, as well as the ways in which material practices of trade, cuisine and gastronomy offer fraught spaces of resistance to agricultural imperialism. The presentation discusses contemporary works addressing maize, including Damián Ortega’s art piece “Pico y elote,” as well as the uses of heirloom corn in the gentrified gastronomical scene in Mexico City.
Short Bio
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is the Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. A scholar of Mexican literature, cinema and food, he is the author of seven books and over one-hundred articles. He served as the Kluge Chair for the Cultures of the South in the Library of Congress.