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SUMMARY:Power\, Promise\, Politics: The Pineapple from Columbus to Del Mon
 te (20-21 February) - Speaker to be confirmed
DTSTART:20200220T090000Z
DTEND:20200220T170000Z
UID:TALK134167@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Speaker to be confirmed
DESCRIPTION:The pineapple is an emblem of power\, promise and politics and
  continues to attract interest from plant scientists\, historians\, and ar
 tists. Its ‘discovery’ by European colonisers in the late fifteenth ce
 ntury and its trajectory around the world\, from an object of luxury and h
 orticultural innovation in the early modern period to an everyday food in 
 a can and a logo of fair-trade movements today\, is a story through which 
 we can understand modern globalisation. \n\nThis interdisciplinary confere
 nce brings together academics from the arts\, humanities\, social sciences
  and sciences as well as museum professionals and artist-practitioners to 
 investigate the understudied tensions between the representational power o
 f the pineapple and the political contexts of its production around the gl
 obe\, thereby making connections between the global and local which are at
  the heart of contemporary debates about the nature and origins of the foo
 d that we eat. \n\nFood will be at the centre of an ambitious ground-break
 ing exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum\, ‘Feast & Fast: The art of foo
 d in Europe\, 1500-1800’ (26 November 2019 to 19 April 2020). The exhibi
 tion\, curated by Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu\, will explore some 
 of these contemporary concerns\, such as global food security\, sustainabi
 lity\, seasonality\, food supply chains\, and climate change\, through the
  imaginative display and critical interpretation of objects\, images and t
 exts from the early modern period\, linking the past with our present. \n\
 nThis conference will build on some of the exhibition themes but expand th
 em beyond its early modern and Eurocentric framework\, by engaging with ne
 w historical writing on global history\, which emphasizes the connected hi
 stories of commodities which do not always place Europe at its centre. The
  easy propagation of the pineapple\, and its cultivation across the globe\
 , from Brazil to Africa\, China\, and Europe\, is particularly conducive t
 o this kind of approach. It will also build on new approaches in the histo
 ry of material culture\, in particular\, on the agency of matter and on ma
 king and knowing. The conference will also draw on the horticultural and b
 otanical expertise at the University of Cambridge\, with the visit to the 
 glasshouses at the Botanic Garden and the study of specimens at the Herbar
 ium\, and incorporate this into our discussions
LOCATION:Sainsbury Laboratory Auditorium (Cambridge University Botanic Gar
 den)\, 20th February and The Batmen Auditorium (Gonville and Caius)\, 21st
  February
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