Call for Papers – Feeding the Soul: Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging

Irish Humanities Alliance Annual Conference – Feeding the Soul: Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging – CALL FOR PAPERS

University College Dublin, UCD Humanities Institute | 4 – 5 September 2025

“Feeding the Soul: Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging”, supported by the Irish Humanities Alliance (IHA) and the UCD Humanities Institute (University College Dublin), seeks to explore the role that food plays in transnational fictional and non-fictional literary works, film, and visual arts. Narratives of food and belonging are vehicles for expressing cross-cultural interactions through the languages of nourishment. The sensory aspects of food consumption, such as taste and smell, contribute to reflect the complexity of cultural hybridity and become often metaphors of positive encounter and/or contamination. Further aspects concern the issue of food waste in the West, the obesity crisis and, vice versa, food scarcity and starvation in those countries of the Global South that are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, warfare and the destruction of indigenous food production. The conference investigates how food is used in transnational artistic outputs to articulate notions of belonging, exile, transnational parenthood, memory and identity, but also food production, food consumption and their ecological dimension.

We invite 250 word proposals for 20 minute papers/performances/research presentations that explore the theme “Feeding the Soul: Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging”. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches from the fields of Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Migration and Diaspora Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Anthropology, Environmental Humanities, Comparative Literature, History, Art History, Film and Media Studies. We encourage scholars from different career levels to submit their proposals, including those who collaborate with food-focused social enterprises, charities, and/or NGOs. Papers that focus on non-Western cultural outputs, indigenous foodways, or global south perspectives are especially welcome.

Submission Deadline: 15 May 2025.

Email Proposals to:
Dr Megan Kuster – megan.kuster@manchester.ac.uk or Dr Sarah Comyn – sarah.comyn@ucd.ie

Steering Committee:
Dr. Bianca Rita Cataldi (University of Galway), Dr. Sarah Comyn (UCD), Prof. Anne Fuchs (UCD), Dr. Megan Kuster (University of Manchester/UCD), Prof. Sonja Tiernan (IHA).