Related Events
More Food for Thought
Those interested in cultural, sociological and historical perspectives on food and food justice may also be interested in the following events taking place at or near UC Davis in 2024-2025.
All events are open to the public.
Library Exhibit
Ongoing
Shields Library, Archives and Special Collections
View our library exhibit, Cooking Against the Grain, on display now. No registration required. View the online exhibit here.
Book Talk: Eating While Black
With Professor Psyche A. Williams-Forson
Postponed. Tuesday, February 18, 4:00-7:00 p.m. Registration will reopen soon.
Hart Hall, 3201. Reception to follow.
Psyche A. Williams-Forson is one of our leading thinkers about food in America. In Eating While Black, she offers her knowledge and experience to illuminate how anti-Black racism operates in the practice and culture of eating.
Screening Food: EARTH SEED
With filmmakers Fox Nakai and Jocelyn Jackson
Friday, February 28, 5:00-8:00 p.m. Register here.
Cruess Hall Theater, 1002.
Rooted in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable series, the legacy of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and the diaspora of the global south, EARTH SEED enacts radical hospitality as a survival practice. This documentary film follows People’s Kitchen Collective (PKC) and their People’s Journey from March-June of 2023 through five regions of California, loosely based on the path North which was taken in Butler’s The Parable of the Sower.
This event is co-sponsored by UC Davis Department of Cinema & Digital Media.
Winter Colloquium: Reclaiming our Food Narratives as a Social Justice Practice
Friday-Saturday, March 14 & 15. Register for Friday & Register for Saturday
Reclaiming Our Food Narratives as a Social Justice Practice seeks to counter dominant narratives about disease and lack in reference to the foodways of Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color in the U.S. Throughout the winter quarter, we will collaborate with others to do this work by staging conversations, film screenings, book talks, an interactive off-campus site visit, and opportunities for convivial eating and body work (walking) with scholars, activists, writers, chefs, farmers located primarily in Northern California, but with national presence as well.
Past Events
Screening Food: Farming the Revolution
With Director Nishtha Jain
Friday, February 21, 4:30-7:15 p.m. Register here.
Cruess Hall Theater, 1002.
The 2024 documentary Farming the Revolution chronicles the incredible year-long protests led by Indian farmers from 2020-2021, in reaction to exploitative farm laws enacted by the government. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the director, Nishtha Jain. Light snacks and refreshments will also be provided.
This event is co-sponsored by UC Davis’ Departments of Cinema & Digital Media, Middle East/South Asia Studies, and Performance Studies, as well as Imagining America and Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Existential Bread: Wheat & Poetry Workshop with Jim Franks
Tuesday, February 11, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Register here.
UC Davis Student Farm.
The workshop includes milling flour and creating your own sourdough starter with flour provided by SCOPE, and a discussion on Jim Franks’ book of poetry.
Book Launch: Real Food, Real Facts
Tuesday, February 4, 4:30-7:30 p.m. Register here.
Hosted at the Manetti Shrem Museum
Join us for an engaging evening featuring American Studies and Darrell Corti Endowed Professor in Food Wine and Culture, Charlotte Biltekoff. Opening remarks from the Graduate Food Studies Reading Group, Elizabeth McQueen (Postdoctoral Fellow), Stace Baran (Ph.D. Candidate, English). Following her talk, Biltekoff will be joined in conversation by acclaimed author and scholar Julie Guthman (Agrarian Dreams, Weighing In, The Problem with Solutions), known for her critical insights into food justice, knowledge politics and capitalism. Light refreshments will be served following the conversation.
Organized by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum and UC Davis Library.
Rhythms of the Land: Fundraiser Screening with Dr. Gail Myers
Sunday, February 2, 3:30 p.m. Tickets available.
Hybrid Event: Registration with donation
Join Dr. Myers, a distinguished scholar in African American farming history and culture for a thought-provoking discussion following the screening.
Book Launch: Kernels of Resistance
Thursday, January 23, 4:00-6:00 p.m. Tickets available.
Hybrid Event: Bowley 101, Zoom Registration
Book launch and action planning to support Mesoamerican food sovereignty with Professor Liza Grandia (UC Davis, Native American Studies)
Co-Sponsored by Native American Studies | Thinking Food | The Native Nest | Agricultural Sustainability Institute | Indigenous Research Center of the Americas | Hemispheric Institute of the Americas | Department of Anthropology
The Oven is Mother: Culinary Performance with Heidi Ross
Thursday, January 30, 4:00-5:00 p.m. Tickets available.
Wyatt Pavillion
Heidi Ross is a private chef and multidisciplinary artist who creates unique culinary experiences, soundscapes, and installations for private events, galleries, public and outdoor spaces. Joining Professor Pierpaolo Polzonetti with his graduate course Gastromusicology, Ross presents a performance at Wyatt Pavillion.
Co-Sponsored by the Department of Music
Reading: Real Food, Real Facts
Offsite event: Thinking Food @ Omnivore Books in SF
Thursday, January 16, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Register here.
Omnivore Books, 3885A Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco
Professor Charlotte Biltekoff of Thinking Food joins Omnivore Books in San Fransisco for a reading of her new book out with UC Press, Real Food, Real Facts.
Colloquium: Reimagining the Past Through Food Justice
Friday, December 6 and Saturday, December 7. Waitlist only.
This two-day colloquium approaches the history of food—both as a scholarly discipline and public discourse—through the lens of food justice.
Savor: Open Kitchens
Transforming Food Service through Community, Culture, and Ethical Leadership
Thursday, December 5, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Register here.
Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, Sensory Theatre and online via Zoom.
Panel discussion among three visionary chefs who are leading change in the food service industry through transparency, labor justice, and storytelling through food.
Presented by the UC Davis Library and the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science
Graduate Reading Group
Wednesday, December 4, 4-6 p.m. Sign up here.
Led by Leslie Geathers, Thinking Food GSR
In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World
By Judith Carney
Screening Food
Friday, November 22, 4-7 p.m. Sign up here.
Creuss Theater 1002
Como agua para chocolate (1992)
Alfonso Arau
Graduate Reading Group
Wednesday, November 20, 4-6 p.m. Sign up here.
Led by Elizabeth McQueen, Thinking Food postdoc
Author in attendance
Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge
by Charlotte Biltekoff
Elevated and Gentrified: Tacos in the
Age of Digital Nomads
Wednesday, November 13th, 3 p.m.
912 Sproul Hall
Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado, Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities Washington University, St Louis
Presented by the Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Graduate Reading Group
Wednesday, November 6, 3:00-5:00 p.m. Sign up here.
Led by Stace Baran, Thinking Food GSR
Moving Crops and the Scales of History
by Francesca Bray, Barbara Hahn, John Bosco Lourdusamy and Tiago Saraiva
Cultural Memory: Resurging Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Mezcal
Wednesday, November 6, 5:30 p.m.
UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, Sensory Theater
Join us for a tasting and workshop on Oaxacan mezcal production practices with Fabiola Santiago, founder of Mi Oaxaca. Sold out (waitlist only).