International conference on “Travelling Food and
Beverages: In and Out of Japan”

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, November 3-5, 2013

Organizer: Dr. Helena Grinshpun

The background to this conference is the intense globalization of Japanese cuisine during the past three decades that has continued despite the deteriorating national economy. The conference will explore the variety of issues centered on how food and beverages have “traveled”: that is, circulated, flowed, interacted, transformed within Japan and globally. Such a perspective may be examined through the following kinds of themes: regulation of food movements, travelling culinary expertise, circulating recipes, playful fusions in the kitchen, traffic in the implements of cooking and eating, food and media, food as soft power, the transfer of knowledge about nutrition, international competitions and interchanges, cuisine and its relation to social mobility or inequality, flows and networks characterizing infrastructure for food and beverages, technologies allowing flows of products, biographies of victuals and drinks (movement along time), or portable foods (lunchboxes for example).

PROGRAM:

DAY 1, November 3
Beit Maiersdorf Faculty Club
17:00 Keynote Lecture:
Ben-Ami Shillony, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Divine Meals at Ise Shrine"

DAY 2, November 4
The Truman Institute, Abba Eban Hall
09:00-09:30 Gathering and registration
9:30-10:00 Opening Session and Greetings Menachem Blondheim, Academic Director of the Truman Research Institute Nissim Otmazgin, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Chair of the Israeli Association for Japanese Studies Helena Grinshpun, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Truman Research Institute

10:00-12:30 Panel 1. Food Politics in Historical Perspective
Chair: Ehud Harari, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Sheldon Garon, Princeton University, "The Home Front and Food Insecurity in Wartime Japan: a Transnational Perspective"
Christopher Pokarier, Waseda University, “Japanese ‘Food Design’: From Place to Portable Concept?”
Rotem Kowner, University of Haifa, "The Best Eugenic Method? The Adoption of Western Diet for Racial Improvement in Modern Japan"

14:00-16:30 Panel 2. Japanese Cuisine as a Soft Power:
Between Globalism and Authenticity
Chair: Orna Naftali, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem James Farrer, Sophia University, "Culinary Soft Power and Culinary Indigenization: the Case of the Global Boom in Japanese Cuisine"
Nancy Stalker, University of Texas at Austin, "
Crafting Japanese Epicureanism: Rosanjin and Gurume Nationalism"
Jonatan Leer, University of Copenhagen, "Cooking with Karate Kid: Constructions of the “Authentic” Japanese Cuisine and the Japanese “Other” in Western Imaginary through the Example of Anthony Bourdains A cooks tour and No reservations"
David Conklin, Portland University, "Soba: The Next Sushi?"

17:00-18:30 Sake workshop and tasting for participants Sponsored by Joël Fresco

DAY 3, November 5
Rabin Building
8:30-11:00 Panel 3. Food and Transnational Flows
Chair: Nissim Otmazgin, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Kelly Hansen, San Diego State University, "When French Fries Go Viral: Mobile Media and the Transformation of Public Space"
Cornelia Reiher, University Halle-Wittenberg, "Food Safety and the Alliance against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Contemporary Japan"
Katrin Gengenbach, Freie Universität Berlin, "Transnational Flows of Vegan Cuisine and Permaculture in Japan"
Alisa Shteinberg, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Can You Eat This Food? A Study of Cooking Habits of Foreigners in Japan"

11:30-13:30 Panel 4. Traveling Beverages
Chair: Ben Ami Shillony, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dick Stegewerns, University of Oslo; "Sake Around the World … and Back: The Three Waves (and Ways) of Sake Appreciation in the West"
Wilburn Hansen, San Diego State University; "Craft Beer in Japan"
Helena Grinshpun, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "'The Boss of Them All': Exploring the Cultural Appropriation of Coffee in Japan"

15:00-16:30 Panel 5. Practitioners' Presentations:
Making Japanese Food and Beverages Local
Chair: Ira Lyan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Galia Dor, Lecturer and guide to Japan, author of the first Hebrew book on Japan's food culture, a long-term apprentice of Kaiseki cuisine and instructor of Japanese cooking workshops in Israel Simob Hofstra, Sake sommelier and director of Sake Europe, a company introducing sake to European audience

17:00-18:00 Panel 6. Concluding remarks
20:30 ~ Closing dinner (Downtown Jerusalem)

DAY 4, November 6
Post-conference culinary tour to the Old City of Jerusalem Guided by Nir Avieli (Ben Gurion University)

For registration and information please contact Dr.
Helena Grinshpun lenochika[at]gmail.com

--
Nissim Otmazgin, Ph.D
Dept. of East Asian Studies, Senior Lecturer The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mt. Scopus 91905 Jerusalem, Israel
E-mail: Nissim.Otmazgin[at]mail.huji.ac.il

The Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, Chair of the Academic Committee Frieberg Center www.eacenter.huji.ac.il Israeli Association for Japanese Studies (IAJS), Chair IAJS www.japan-studies.org