Culture and Cuisine in Russia and Eastern Europe, Feb 7-8

The Julius Glickman Conference Center, College of Liberal Arts Building, UT campus
This event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. NO REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Lunch and Dinner events, however, are for participants and invited guests only. Please contact Mary Neuburger burgerm@austin.utexas.edu for information on meal events (as listed on preliminary program — see link).

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and the Center for European Studies at The University of Texas at Austin are hosting a two-day symposium on the culture and history of food in the Russian Empire (and Soviet Union) and its successor states, as
well as “Eastern Europe” broadly defined. Drawing on a wide range of
sources and disciplines, speakers will explore how patterns of food
cultivation, preparation, and consumption are embedded in local, national,
and trans-national cultural configurations. We hope to celebrate and reexamine the history and culture of the region through the lens of its food.

Featuring Dr. Ronald LeBlanc as Keynote Speaker
“From Russian Vegetarians to Soviet Hamburgers: Tolstoy, Mikoyan, and the
Ethics/Politics of Diet.”

Ronald D. LeBlanc is Professor of Russian and Humanities at the University
of New Hampshire and Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and
Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. The author of “Slavic Sins of the
Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetite in Nineteenth-Century Russian
Fiction” (2009), Professor LeBlanc has written numerous “gastrocritical”
studies on food and eating in the works of such writers as Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky, Gogol, Goncharov, Bulgakov, and Olesha.

Co-Organizers:

Mary Neuburger
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of History
burgerm@austin.utexas.edu

Keith Livers
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
kalivers@austin.utexas.edu

Tatiana Kuzmic
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
tkuzmic@austin.utexas.edu