Abstract

Training Taste | Wednesday 6 April 2022 | 4:00pm UK Time | Online

The ‘Taste as a Form of Knowledge Production’ Research Group at gloknos invites you to the fourth session of their current seminar series, hosted by Marieke Hendriksen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam) and Alex Wragge-Morley (Lancaster University).

This session addresses the notion that taste can be trained – both in the sense that individuals can learn to like things they did not previously enjoy, and in the sense that they can enhance their capacity for sensory experience. Sometimes, these two senses are intertwined, when people learn to discriminate more finely between sensory experiences, and in so doing learn to identify new forms of pleasure.

Dr John Gallagher is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds. A specialist in cultural and social histories of early modern Britain and Europe, with a particular interest in language, migration, and education, John’s research stretches from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth century and covers topics ranging from the history of Italian grammar to the Grand Tour, and from perfumed gloves to Mediterranean piracy.

He is a BBC /AHRC New Generation Thinker and, among many BBC collaborations, features in the Radio 3 Sunday Feature, The History of the Tongue.

Dr Patrick Ruch is Research Staff Member at IBM Research-Zurich and Technical Assistant to the Vice President of Europe and Africa and Director of IBM Research-Zurich. His research interests lie in AI-assisted combinatorial chemical sensing for applications in quality and process control and product innovation.

Patrick is the Principal Investigator of HyperTaste, a research effort to demonstrate an end-to-end implementation for AI-assisted rapid testing of complex liquids. At IBM , he has led research projects on energy-efficient computing systems and sustainable energy technologies.

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.