Speaker: Professor Sami Zubaida
Wednesday 9 February 2011
18:00 - 19:30
NAB.1.07, New Academic Building, LSE
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The 'Mediterranean Diet' has listed by UNESCO as Intangible Heritage. This is the culmination of continuous favourable press over decades, lauding its health benefits and general culinary qualities, accompanied by successful marketing of olive oil as its essential ingredient. Ottoman lands and traditions are part of Mediterranean geography, and Ottoman cuisine has been another category promoted in discourses of tourism, food media and public catering. Do these two categories indicate historically coherent entities? And how do they fit together?
Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London, Research Associate of the London Middle East Institute, and Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre, both at SOAS. He has held visiting posts in Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut, Berkeley CA, Paris and NYU Law School. He works on religion, culture, law and politics in the Middle East, and on food and culture. Countries of interest are Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Books include: Islam, the People and the State (3rd edition 2009); A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (co-edited with R Tapper, 2000); Law and Power in the Islamic World (2003); Beyond Islam (2011).
This lecture is open to all and registration is not required.