Abstract

Taste and Value | Wednesday 1 December 2021 | 4:00pm UK Time | Online

This is the second discussion session in a series of six, hosted by Marieke Hendriksen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam) and Alex Wragge-Morley (Lancaster University).

Through an informal conversation, this session examines two different ways in which taste is and has been used to assign value to things. We’ll compare two strikingly different ways of using taste to determine value – the literal use of taste to determine the value of water, and the metaphorical use of taste to determine the value of art.

Speakers:

Christy Spackman holds a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Arts, Media and Engineering Department at Arizona State University. She has a doctorate in Food Studies from New York University. Her work focuses on how the sensory experiences of making, consuming, and disposing of food influence and are influenced by ‘technologies of taste,’ her term for the oft-overlooked technologies and practices used to manage the sensory aspects of foods during production.

Charlotte Guichard is a Professor of History at the CNRS and director of the Doctoral School of Letters, Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. A specialist in the eighteenth century in France, she works at the crossroads of art history, socio-cultural history and social sciences. Through the notions of expertise, authenticity and originality, she questions the constitution of the art worlds and their values ​​in modern Europe.

To join via Zoom, or if you have queries about this event, please don’t hesitate to email

You can find out more about the ‘Taste and Knowledge’ Research Group on our website

gloknos is initially funded for 5 years by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr Inanna Hamati-Ataya for her project ARTEFACT (2017-2022) ERC grant no. 724451.