Food - Media - Asia - Gender

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

The “food film” has been a popular genre worldwide since the 1980s, a decade boasting productions such as the Japanese “noodle western” Tampopo and the Danish period piece about French cuisine, Babette’s Feast. Like their subject, films about food move across national boundaries, embracing myriad genres and media. Our panel focuses on film, television, and the crossover between the two; and on Asian media, with specific attention to Japanese, Taiwanese and Singaporean productions. Since ingredients, dishes, culinary concepts and personalities circulate globally, moving between Asia and the rest of the world, our geographic and cultural scope extends to the United States and France as they interact with Asia as well. Our panel, composed of historians and comparatists working in media studies, also reflects the interdisciplinarity of the burgeoning domain of Food Studies. We consider the role of the celebrity chef; the media’s portrayal of gender in relation to cooking and chefing; and the specific roles of food in Asian film and television.
Our creative presentation format, entailing circulation of papers in advance followed by film clips then discussion, will maximize interactivity. We will each project clips from our projects (1-3 clips for a total of 2-5 minutes total per panelist) followed by 15 minutes of discussion per paper. The remaining 30-45 minutes will entail dialogue between panelists and the audience, moving fluidly between films and concepts presented in all four projects, pushing the discussion beyond the media and geographico-cultural parameters of the texts presented.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Michelle E. Bloom, University of California, Riverside

Chair

• Yujen Chen, National Taiwan Normal University

Individual Presentations

• Fu Pei-mei as Gastrodiplomat: The Global Reach of Taiwan's Original Cookbook Author and Television Personality - Michelle King, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Manhood, Confusionism and Pan-Asian Cuisine: Chef Stories - Staci Ford, The University of Hong Kong

• French Culinary Connections in Contemporary Sinophone Cinema: Eric Khoo’s Recipe and Lin Cheng-sheng’s 27°C: Loaf Rocks - Michelle E. Bloom, University of California, Riverside

• You Are Not What You Eat: Marginalized Identities in "Shin'ya Shokudo" - Satoko Kakihara, Nagoya University