Ruminating Repasts in Literature

Call for Papers, 2007 MLA Convention in Chicago, Special Session

This session explores conflations of foods and fictions in medieval and early modern culture. How and why do banquets, meals, and food references pervade the literature of this period? How does our understanding of cuisine, dietetics, taste, natural history, and material culture enhance or inform interpretations of literature? Where in effect do literary and culinary discourses intersect and interact?

Please send 250-word abstracts by 5 March 2007 to Tim Tomasik, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Valparaiso University (timothy.tomasik@valpo.edu).  Proposals will only be accepted from active members of the Modern Language Association.