Issue 9.2 Culinary Cultures on the Move

Deadlines | General: May 15, 2022 | Convergence Proposals: August 1, 2021

verge@psu.edu

Edited by Krishnendu Ray, Jooyeon Rhee, and Tina Chen

Boundaries and borders are neither static nor innately cartographic: they are in constant flux and always in process of being reconfigured. This special issue highlights how studies of place and movement can help us remap culinary cultures and become more aware of the spatial dimensions of gastronomic practice. How does bodily movement and its constraints direct us to new points of view about culinary cultures in Global Asias? What are the forces behind the formation of culinary nationalism, nativism, and ethnocentrism in Asian and diasporic communities—and how have they affected the ways people practice and contest foodways? How do material contexts—from squatting to standing, from wells to sinks, from floor level cutting utensils to cutting boards, from cowdung cakes to natural gas— shape techniques, taste, and culinary habits? How do infrastructural investments and aesthetic imaginaries of food expand our understanding of the relationship between self and other?

We invite papers on transnational flows (both imaginary and real), border making and breaking, culinary heritages and innovations, techniques and technologies, and the relationships between the production, distribution and consumption of food in Asia and its multiple diasporas. We welcome projects that approach the study of food contextually and that highlight the intersectional and cross-disciplinary implications of spaces and movements of bodies, dead or alive, as produce, product or terminus. Theoretical explorations on the shifting grounds of the intersection of disciplines are also welcome.

Essay Submissions

Essays (between 6,000-10,000 words) and abstracts (125 words ) should be submitted electronically to verge@psu.edu and prepared according to the author-date + bibliography format of the Chicago Manual of Style. See section 2.38 of the University of Minnesota Press style guide or chapter 15 of the Chicago Manual of Style Online for additional formatting information. The essay submission deadline: May 15, 2022.

Authors’ names should not appear on manuscripts; instead, please include a separate document with the author’s name, address, institutional affiliations, and the title of the article with your electronic submission. Authors should not refer to themselves in the first person in the submitted text or notes if such references would identify them; any necessary references to the author’s previous work, for example, should be in the third person.

Convergence Feature Proposals

One of Verge: Studies in Global Asias’ distinctive features is an opening section called Convergence, where we curate a rotating series of rubrics that emphasize collaborative intellectual engagement and exchange. Each issue features four of the following rubrics: A&Q, a responsive dialogue, either in interview or roundtable format, inspired by a set of questions; Codex, a collaborative discussion and assessment of books, films, or exhibits; Translation, for texts, primary or secondary, not yet available in English; Field Trip, reports from various subfields of the disciplines; Portfolio, commentaries on visual images; and Interface, texts exploring the resources of the print-digital world. We welcome those interested in these features to submit a Convergence proposal for the issue.

Proposals should be 1-2 pages in length and indicate what kind of feature is being proposed; demonstrate an awareness of the formats utilized by the journal; include an abstract and, if collaborative, a list of proposed contributors; and include a short (2 pg) cv.

The Convergence proposals deadline is August 1, 2021, however, we encourage those interested in submitting to contact co-editors about their ideas in advance of this date. Please direct all inquiries and submissions to verge@psu.edu.

You can download the Issue 9.2 CFP here: Issue 9.2 CFP