Public Eating, Public Drinking: Places of Consumption from Early Modern to Postmodern Times

Public Eating, Public Drinking: Places of Consumption from Early Modern to Postmodern Times

Organizer
Prof. Marc Forster / Dr. Maren Möhring
Venue
German Historical Institute, 1607 New Hampshire Ave, NW, Washington, DC, 20009
Location
Washington, DC
Country
United States
From - Until
23.05.2008 - 24.05.2008
Website
By
Maren Möhring

Early modern taverns and inns as well as modern restaurants and snack-bars are places of consumption which played and still play an important role in the social, economic and cultural life of their time. They serve(d) not only as commercial providers of food and drinks, but also as centers of communication and political, religious and social exchange. At once open and secluded, significantly located in-between public and private space, these eating and drinking places have received a lot of attention from authorities as well as in public discourse. Without leaving aside formative legal regulations and economic constraints, the international workshop “Public Eating, Public Drinking” will focus on the social, material and imaginary aspects of these sites of consumption, namely the social actors involved, the places’ material attributes as well as the images and narrations surrounding and constructing these places. Whereas some research has been done on the early modern inn or the modern restaurant respectively, these institutions have only rarely been discussed in historical comparison. By choosing a long-term perspective, the workshop aims at clarifying continuities in the development of (semi-) public eating places, but also drawing attention to decisive changes – not the least of conceptions of ‘the public’ and ‘the private’ themselves.

Programm

Friday, May 23rd

9.00 Breakfast at the GHI

9.30 Welcome

9.45 Public Houses in Early Modern Germany

Beat Kümin (University of Warwick):
The Iconography of the Early Modern Public House

Marc Forster (Connecticut College):
Space, Gender and Honor in Village Taverns

Ann Tlusty (Bucknell University):
Drinking Culture and Boundaries of Identity in the Early Modern German City

Respondent: Gerd Schwerhoff (TU Dresden)

10.45 Coffee break

11.15 Discussion

13.00 Lunch

14.45 Restaurant Dining

Peter Scholliers (Vrije Universiteit Brussel):
In Search for Popular Restaurants. Diffusion and Interpretation of Culinary Culture in Europe around 1900

Andrew P. Haley (University of Southern Mississippi):
Playing with Their Food: Children and the Culinary Arts, 1890-1960

Respondent: Uwe Spiekermann (GHI Washington)

15.45 Coffee Break

16.15 Discussion

19.00 Conference Dinner

Saturday, May 24th

9.00 Breakfast at the GHI

9.30 Rationalized Eating

Angelika Epple (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg):
The "Automat" – an "American Institution"? Quick Lunch Rooms in Europe and the U.S.

Ulrike Thoms (Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Charité Berlin):
Physical Reproduction, Social Differentiation, and Communication in the Workplace. The Lunch Room as a Place of Consumption

Anke Ortlepp (GHI Washington):
Empty Plates in the Crowded Skies: the Rationalization of Airline Food in the Twenti-eth-Century United States

Respondent: Simone Derix (Universität zu Köln)

10.30 Coffee Break

11.00 Discussion

13.00 Lunch

14.45 Transnational Places of Consumption

Lars Amenda (Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg):
Food and Otherness. Chinese Restaurants in West European Cities in the 20th Century

Donna Gabaccia/Jeffrey M. Pilcher (University of Minnesota):
Italian and Mexican Restaurants and Street Foods in the United States in the Early Twentieth century

Maren Möhring (GHI Washington/University of Zurich):
Italian Restaurants and Ice-Cream Parlours in Post-war Germany

Elizabeth Buettner (University of York):
Curry Capitals, Chicken Tikka Masala, and Flock Wallpaper: Loving and Loathing Britain's "Indian" Restaurants

15.45 Coffee Break

16.15 Respondent: Corinna Unger (GHI Washington) & Discussion

[ca. 18.00 End of the Workshop]

Contact (announcement)

Maren Möhring

Forschungsstelle für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte
Universität Zürich, Rämistr. 64, CH-8001 Zürich

moehring@fsw.uzh.ch


Editors Information
Published on
27.04.2008
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