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In June of 2012, with the support of the Center for International Education鈥檚 Faculty International Development Grant, I traveled to Perugia, Italy to eat my body weight in such local delicacies as homemade听barbozzo听(cured pig鈥檚 meat),听porcini alla griglia(grilled porcini mushrooms), and听torciglione听(an eel-shaped almond pastry). And I also participated in a conference entitled听Italian Food: Fact and Fiction听at the Umbra Institute, an academic institution where students from a wide variety of American Universities can spend a summer, a semester, or a year abroad taking classes with Italian students from the Universit脿 degli studi di Perugia. The Umbra Institute鈥檚 interdisciplinary Food Studies Program is a new addition to their curriculum, and the conference was intended to highlight the exciting potential of inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches to Italian food as it relates to Italian national identity. The conference鈥檚 keynote speakers were Massimo Montanari, a professor at the University of Bologna and one of the world鈥檚 foremost authorities on food history, and Ken Albala, a professor at University of the Pacific and the prolific author of works on the food culture of the Italian Renaissance.

Some of the diverse panel topics included Food and Politics, Changes in Consumption and Production, Food Perceptions and Issues for American Universities in Italy, and Stories told by Cookbooks. My colleague, Paula Salvio (91制片厂 Department of Education), and I delivered a joint paper entitled 鈥淎t the Center of the Table: Alimentary Pedagogies in the Culinary Spaces of Ferzan 脰zpetek鈥檚 Films鈥� for a panel on Food in Cinematic Representation. Our paper explored 脰spetek鈥檚 kitchens and dining tables as relational sites where cooking, feeding, and sharing meals work as forms of melancholic political resistance.

In addition to giving the paper, one of my goals in attending this conference was to connect with faculty and administrators from other institutions that either offer Italy-focused food studies programs or are interested in doing so in order to both learn from their experiences and to promote the newly created curriculum at 91制片厂-in-Italy鈥檚 Ascoli Piceno campus. During the conference, I met the Umbra Institute鈥檚 Director of Academic Programs, Francesco Burzacca, as well as the Assistant Director of the Food Studies Program, Zachary Nowak, and we have kept in touch since then.

After the conference, Professor Salvio and I also traveled to Rome where we visited a number of sites and museums related to Fascism and World War II such as the Fosse Ardeatine, the Synagogue in the Jewish Ghetto, and the Museo Storico della Liberazione for another collaborative project we are working on that deals with the commemoration of Fascist atrocities. I am very grateful to the Center for International Education for the opportunity to travel to both Perugia and Rome in order to pursue scholarly, pedagogical, and gastronomic activities!

Photo above: Amy Boylan with Francesco Burzacca, the Director of Academic Programs at the Umbra Institute